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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
URBAKA 


A  REUNION  AT  THE  HOUSE  OF  AS  PASTA. 


After  the  Painting  by  A.  Grolleau. 


UNIVERSITY  EDITION 


Crowned  /lhasterpteces 


OF 


Xttcrature 


THAT  HAVE  ADVANCED  CIVILIZATION 


As  Preserved  and  Presented  by 

Zb e  Morin’s  36cst  Essa?s 

From  the  Earliest  Period 
to  the  Present  Time 

& 

DAVID  J.  BREWER 
Editor 

EDWARD  A*  ALLEN 
WILLIAM  SCHUYLER 
Associate  Editors 


* 


TEN  VOLUMES 

VOL.  II 

ST.  LOUIS 

FERD.  P.  KAISER 

1902 


TUnfversfti?  EMtfott 


SPECIAL  TESTIMONIAL  SET 


Copyright  1900 
Copyright  1902 

BY 

FERD.  P.  KAISER 


All  rights  reserved 


Editor  Publisher 


Ni"  THE  ADVISORY  COUNCIL 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT,  M.  A.,  F.  S.  A., 

Soho  Square,  London  W.,  England 

PROFESSOR  KUNO  FRANCKE,  Ph.  D., 

Department  of  German,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass, 

HIRAM  CORSON,  A.  M.,  LL.  D., 

Department  of  English  Literature,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y, 

WILLIAM  DRAPER  LEWIS,  Ph.  D., 

Dean  of  the  Department  of  Law, 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

RICHARD  GOTTHEIL,  Ph.  D., 

Professor  of  Oriental  Languages, 

Columbia  University,  in  the  City  of  New  York. 

MRS.  LOUISE  CHANDLER  MOULTON, 

Author  <(  Swallow  Flights, »  <(  Bed-Time  Stories, )}  etc.  Boston,  Mass. 

WILLIAM  VINCENT  BYARS, 

Manager  The  Valley  Press  Bureau,  St.  Louis. 

F.  M.  CRUNDEN,  A.  M., 

Librarian  St.  Louis  Public  Library;  President  (1890)  American 
Library  Association. 

MAURICE  FRANCIS  EGAN,  A.  M.,  LL.  D., 

Professor  of  English  and  Literature, 

Catholic  University  of  America,  Washington,  D.  C. 

ALCEE  FORTIER,  Lit.  D., 

Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Tulane  University,  New  Orleans,  La. 

SHELDON  JACKSON,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

A.  MARSHALL  ELLIOTT,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

WILLIAM  P.  TRENT,  M.  A., 

Professor  of  English  Literature, 

Columbia  University,  in  the  City  of  New  York. 

CHARLES  MILLS  GAYLEY,  Litt.  D., 

Department  of  English,  University  of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 
RICHARD  JONES,  Ph.  D., 

Department  of  English,  vice  Austin  H.  Merrill,  deceased,  Department 
of  Elocution,  Vanderbilt  University,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

W.  STUART  SYMINGTON,  Jr.,  Ph.  D., 

Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Amherst  College,  Amherst,  Mass. 


. 


V 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

VOLUME  II 


LIVED  PAGE 

The  Marquis  of  Beccaria  1735-1793  419 

The  Prevention  of  Crime 
Laws  and  Human  Happiness 
Against  Capital  Punishment 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward  1813-1887  430 

Dream-Culture 

Bentham,  Jeremy  1748-1832  435 

Publicity  the  Sole  Remedy  for  Misrule 
Property  and  Poverty 

Berkeley,  George  1685-1753  440 

Pleasures,  Natural  and  Fantastical 

Besant,  Sir  Walter  1838-  445 

With  the  Wits  of  the  ’Thirties 
Montaigne’s  Method  as  an  Essayist 

Birrell,  Augustine  1850-  454 

On  Doctor  Brown’s  Dog-Story 
Book-Buying 

Blackie,  John  Stuart  1809-1895  463 

The  Love  Songs  of  Scotland 

Blackstone,  Sir  William  1723-1780  477 

The  Professional  Soldier  in  Free  Countries 

Blair,  Hugh  1718-1800  483 

The  Poetry  of  the  Hebrews 
Taste  and  Genius 


VI 


Blaserna,  Pietro 

Music,  Ancient  and  Modern 

LIVED 

1836- 

PAGE 

49  1 

Blind,  Karl 

Wodan  and  the  Wandering  Jew 

1820- 

49  B 

Boethius,  Anicius  Manlius  Severinus  475- 

What  Is  the  Highest  Happiness  ? 

-525  A.  D. 

5°4 

Bohme,  Jacob 

Paradise 

The  Supersensual  Life 

1575-1624 

508 

Bolingbroke,  Henry  St.  John,  Viscount 

On  the  Study  of  History 

1678-1751 

5i3 

Bosanquet,  Bernard 

The  True  Conception  of  Another  World 

1848- 

5H 

Bourget,  Paul 

On  the  Death  of  Victor  Hugo 

1 

N 

00 
t— 1 

523 

Boyd,  Andrew  Kennedy  Hutchinson 

Getting  On  in  the  World 

1 

LO 

Cl 

00 

►H 

52  7 

Boyle,  Robert 

On  a  Glow  Worm  in  a  Phial 

The  Possibility  of  the  Resurrection 

The  Knowledge  of  Nature 

l627-l69I 

535 

Brillat-Savarin,  Anthelme 

Gastronomy  and  the  Other  Sciences 

On  Death 

1755-1826 

540 

Brooke,  Henry 

What  Is  a  Gentleman  ? 

1703-1783 

00 

■'T 

i-o 

Brougham,  Henry,  Baron  Brougham  and  Vaux 

The  Character  of  Danton 

1778-1868 

553 

Brown,  John 

l8lO-l882 

561 

The  Death  of  Thackeray 
Mary  Duff’s  Last  Half-Crown 
Rab  and  the  Game  Chicken 


Vll 


LIVED 

PAGE 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas 

Religio  Medici 

1605-1682 

574 

Browning,  Robert 

Shelley’s  Spiritual  Life 

1812-1889 

646 

Brunetiere,  Ferdinand 

1849- 

651 

The  Essential  Characteristic  of  French  Literature 

Bryant,  William  Cullen 

A  Day  in  Florence 

Europe  under  the  Bayonet 

The  Life  of  Women  in  Cuba 

1794-1878 

659 

Bryce,  James 

Democracy  and  Civic  Duty  , 

1838- 

666 

Buchner,  Ludwig 

Woman’s  Brain  and  Rights 

1824- 

67 1 

Buckle,  Henry  Thomas 

Liberty  a  Supreme  Good 

1821-1862 

677 

Budgell,  Eustace 

The  Love  Affairs  of  Will  Honeycomb 
Love  after  Marriage 

M.  Rigadoon’s  Dancing  School 

Modesty  and  Assurance 

1686-1737 

685 

Bunsen,  Christian  Karl  Josias,  Baron  von 

Luther  at  Worms 

1791-1860 

698 

Burke,  Edmund 

The  Principles  of  Good  Taste 

1729-1797 

705 

The  Efficient  Cause  of  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful 

Burlamaqui,  Jean  Jacques 

The  Principles  of  Natural  Right 

1694-1748 

747 

Burleigh,  William  Cecil,  Baron 

The  Well  Ordering  of  a  Man’s  Life 

1 520-1598 

752 

Burritt,  Elihu 

1811-1879 

757 

A  Point  of  Space 

The  Circulation  of  Matter 

The  Force  of  Gravity  in  the  Moral  World 


Vlll 


Burroughs,  John 

The  Art  of  Seeing  Things 

LIVED 

1837- 

PAGE 

763 

Burton,  Sir  Richard  Francis 

Romantic  Love  and  Arab  Poetry 

I82I-I89O 

777 

Burton,  Robert 

The  Nature  of  Spirits,  Bad  Angels,  or 
Of  Discontents 

1577-1640 

Devils 

784 

Bury,  Richard  de 

The  Mind  in  Books 

1281-1345 

790 

Butler,  Joseph 

Does  God  Put  Men  to  the  Test  ? 

1692-1752 

793 

Byron,  George  Noel  Gordon,  Lord 

Art  and  Nature 

1788-1824 

800 

Caine,  Hall 

Aspects  of  Shakespeare’s  Art 

1853- 

806 

Campbell,  Thomas 

Chatterton’s  Life  Tragedy 

1777-1844 

814 

Carleton,  William 

1794-1869 

821 

A  Glimpse  of  Irish  Life 


FULL-PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOLUME  II 


PAGE 

A  Reunion  at  the  House  of  Aspasia 

(Photogravure)  Frontispiece 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  (Portrait  after  His  Statue, 

Photogravure)  430 

Napoleon  Receiving  the  Portrait  of  His  Son 

(Photogravure)  553 

Lord  George  Noel  Gordon  Byron  (Portrait, 

Photogravure) 


800 


y 


4i9 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 

(Cesare  Bonesano  Marchese  di  Beccaria) 

(1735-1793) 

t  is  only  necessary  to  read  a  few  clauses  of  anything  the 
Marquis  of  Beccaria  has  written,  to  feel  the  commanding 
power  of  his  great  intellect.  The  reader  accustomed  to 
strive  with  other  writers  for  the  privilege  of  wresting  their  meaning 
from  their  words  is  so  strongly  compelled  by  Beccaria,  that,  unless 
he  deliberately  make  up  his  mind  to  dissent  at  the  beginning,  he 
will  be  forced  from  one  irresistible  conclusion  to  another.  It  is  doubt¬ 
ful  if  Italy  since  the  time  of  Cicero,  has  produced  Beccaria’s  equal  as 
a  master  of  style  and  as  a  thinker  in  his  own  field  of  the  philosophy 
of  human  action.  His  eminence  in  Italian  literature  is  incontestible. 
He  has  a  faculty  of  striking  out  his  sentences,  complete  in  thought 
and  ready  for  separate  currency,  as  if  they  came  from  the  stamp  of 
a  mint,  while  at  the  same  time  each  is  a  part  of  the  sum  of  a 
broader  thought,  and  a  link  in  the  chain  of  its  demonstration.  (<It  is 
better  to  prevent  crimes  than  to  punish  them®;  .  .  .  <(The  ma¬ 

jority  of  laws  are  nothing  but  privileges,  or  a  tribute  paid  by  all 
to  the  convenience  of  some  few®;  .  .  .  (<  Salutary  is  the  fear  of 

the  law,  but  fatal  and  fertile  in  crime  is  the  fear  of  one  man  by  an¬ 
other®;  .  .  .  (<  Would  you  prevent  crimes  —  then  see  that  enlight¬ 
enment  accompanies  liberty®;  .  .  .  <(  The  evils  that  flow  from 

knowledge  are  in  inverse  ratio  to  its  diffusion®;  .  .  .  (<the  great 

clash  [is]  between  the  errors  which  are  serviceable  to  a  few  men  of 
power  and  the  truths  which  are  serviceable  to  the  weak  and  the 
many®  —  in  such  sentences  as  these  which  crowd  each  other  in  his 
pages,  we  must  feel,  even  when  we  cannot  comprehend,  the  secret 
of  the  power  which  enabled  him  so  to  sway  the  mind  of  civilization 
that  within  fifty  years  after  the  publication  of  his  great  work,  <(  Dei 
Delitti  e  Delle  Pene®  (On  Crimes  and  Punishments),  it  had  influenced 
for  the  better  the  whole  course  of  government  in  every  Caucasian 
nation  of  the  world,  justifying  fully  in  results  the  calm  confidence 
with  which  Beccaria  had  written :  (( The  voice  of  the  philosopher  is 
feeble  against  the  noise  and  cries  of  so  many  followers  of  blind  cus¬ 
tom,  but  the  few  wise  men  scattered  over  the  earth  will  respond 
from  their  inmost  hearts.® 


420 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


Beccaria’s  relations  to  Montesquieu  are  evident.  He  seems  to  have 
regarded  himself  as  Montesquieu’s  pupil,  but  his  intellectual  habits 
are  in  all  things  those  of  the  master,  —  the  man  of  universal  sym¬ 
pathy  using  a  strong  intellect  as  a  mode  of  expression  for  a  soul 
inspired  by  the  sacred  desire  of  decreasing  the  suffering  of  mankind. 

He  was  born  at  Milan  in  1735,  and  educated  in  the  Jesuit  College 
at  Parma.  His  first  work  as  an  essayist  was  done  on  a  small  paper 
called  II  Caffe,  modeled  on  the  Spectator,  so  that  the  style  and  mind 
of  Addison  may  fairly  be  assumed  as  greatly  influential  in  deter¬ 
mining  his  intellectual  habits.  His  work  on  (( Crimes  and  Punish¬ 
ments,  ®  published  in  1764,  passed  through  six  editions  at  once  and 
was  soon  translated  into  the  principal  languages  of  Europe.  One  of 
the  most  radical  thinkers  of  modern  times,  Beccaria  was  nevertheless 
so  conservative  in  his  attitude  towards  existing  institutions,  and  so 
distrustful  of  all  revolutionary  changes,  that  he  was  chosen  to  assist 
in  reforming  the  Italian  Judicial  Code,  and  appointed  to  a  chair  of 
Public  Law  and  Economy  which  had  been  founded  expressly  for  him 
in  the  Palatine  College  of  Milan.  He  died  in  1793. 


THE  PREVENTION  OF  CRIMES 

It  is  better  to  prevent  crimes  than  to  punish  them.  This  is 
the  chief  aim  of  every  good  system  of  legislation,  which  is 
the  art  of  leading  men  to  the  greatest  possible  happiness  or 
to  the  least  possible  misery,  according  to  calculation  of  all  the 
goods  and  evils  of  life.  But  the  means  hitherto  employed  for 
this  end  are  for  the  most  part  false  and  contrary  to  the  end  pro¬ 
posed.  It  is  impossible  to  reduce  the  turbulent  activity  of  men 
to  a  geometrical  harmony  without  irregularity  or  confusion.  As 
the  constant  and  most  simple  laws  of  nature  do  not  prevent 
aberrations  in  the  movements  of  the  planets,  so,  in  the  infinite 
and  contradictory  attractions  of  pleasure  and  pain,  disturbances 
and  disorder  cannot  be  prevented  by  human  laws.  Yet  this  is 
the  chimera  that  narrow-minded  men  pursue,  when  they  have 
power  in  their  hands.  To  prohibit  a  number  of  indifferent  acts 
is  not  to  prevent  the  crimes  that  may  arise  from  them,  but  it  is 
to  create  new  ones  from  them;  it  is  to  give  capricious  defini¬ 
tions  of  virtue  and  vice  which  are  proclaimed  as  eternal  and  im¬ 
mutable  in  their  nature.  To  what  should  we  be  reduced  if 
everything  had  to  be  forbidden  us  which  might  tempt  us  to  a 
crime  ?  It  would  be  necessary  to  deprive  a  man  of  the  use 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


421 


of  his  senses.  For  one  motive  that  drives  men  to  commit  a  real 
crime,  there  are  a  thousand  that  drive  them  to  the  commission  of 
those  indifferent  acts  which  are  called  crimes  by  bad  laws;  and 
if  the  likelihood  of  crimes  is  proportioned  to  the  number  of  mo¬ 
tives  to  commit  them,  an  increase  of  the  field  of  crimes  is  an 
increase  of  the  likelihood  of  their  commission.  The  majority  of 
laws  are  nothing  but  privileges,  or  a  tribute  paid  by  all  to  the 
convenience  of  some  few. 

Would  you  prevent  crimes  ?  Then  cause  the  laws  to  be  clear 
and  simple;  bring  the  whole  force  of  a  nation  to  bear  on  their 
defense,  and  suffer  no  part  of  it  to  be  busied  in  overthrowing 
them.  Make  the  laws  to  favor  not  so  much  classes  of  men  as 
men  themselves.  Cause  men  to  fear  the  laws  and  the  laws 
alone.  Salutary  is  the  fear  of  the  law,  but  fatal  and  fertile  in 
crime  is  the  fear  of  one  man  by  another.  Men  as  slaves  are 
more  sensual,  more  immoral,  more  cruel  than  free  men;  and, 
while  the  latter  give  their  minds  to  the  sciences  or  to  the  inter¬ 
ests  of  their  country,  setting  great  objects  before  themselves  as 
their  model,  the  former,  contented  with  the  passing  day,  seek  in 
the  excitement  of  libertinage  a  distraction  from  the  nothingness 
of  their  existence,  and,  accustomed  to  an  uncertainty  of  result  in 
everything,  they  look  upon  the  results  of  their  crimes  as  uncer¬ 
tain  too,  and  so  decide  in  favor  of  the  passion  that  tempts  them. 
If  uncertainty  of  the  laws  affects  a  nation,  rendered  indolent  by 
its  climate,  its  indolence  and  stupidity  is  thereby  maintained  and 
increased;  if  it  affects  a  nation,  which  though  fond  of  pleasure  is 
also  full  of  energy,  it  wastes  that  energy  in  a  number  of  petty 
cabals  and  intrigues  which  spread  distrust  in  every  heart,  and 
make  treachery  and  dissimulation  the  foundation  of  prudence. 
If,  again,  it  affects  a  courageous  and  brave  nation,  the  uncer¬ 
tainty  is  ultimately  destroyed,  after  many  oscillations  from  liberty 
to  servitude,  and  from  servitude  back  again  to  liberty. 

Would  you  prevent  crimes  ?  Then  see  that  enlightenment 
accompanies  liberty.  The  evils  that  flow  from  knowledge  are  in 
inverse  ratio  to  its  diffusion;  the  benefits  directly  proportioned  to 
it.  A  bold  impostor,  who  is  never  a  commonplace  man,  is  adored 
by  an  ignorant  people,  but  despised  by  an  enlightened  one. 
Knowledge,  by  facilitating  comparisons  between  objects  and  mul¬ 
tiplying  men’s  points  of  view,  brings  many  different  notions  into 
contrast,  causing  them  to  modify  one  another  all  the  more  easily 
as  the  same  views  and  the  same  difficulties  are  observed  in 


422 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


others.  In  the  face  of  a  widely  diffused  national  enlightenment, 
the  calumnies  of  ignorance  are  silent,  and  authority,  disarmed  of 
pretexts  for  its  manifestation,  trembles;  while  the  rigorous  force 
of  the  laws  remains  unshaken,  no  one  of  education  having  any 
dislike  to  the  clear  and  useful  public  compacts  which  secure  the 
common  safety,  when  he  compares  the  trifling  and  useless  liberty 
sacrificed  by  himself  with  the  sum  total  of  all  the  liberties  sacri¬ 
ficed  by  others,  who  without  the  laws  might  have  been  hostile  to 
himself.  Whoever  has  a  sensitive  soul,  when  he  contemplates  a 
code  of  well-made  laws,  and  finds  that  he  has  only  lost  the  per¬ 
nicious  liberty  of  injuring  others,  will  feel  himself  constrained  to 
bless  the  throne  and  the  monarch  that  sits  upon  it. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  sciences  have  always  been  injurious  to 
mankind;  when  they  were  so,  it  was  an  inevitable  evil.  The 
multiplication  of  the  human  race  over  the  face  of  the  earth  in¬ 
troduced  war,  the  ruder  arts,  and  the  first  laws,  mere  temporary 
agreements  which  perished  with  the  necessity  that  gave  rise  to 
them.  This  was  mankind’s  primitive  philosophy,  the  few  ele¬ 
ments  of  which  were  just,  because  the  indolence  and  slight  wis¬ 
dom  of  their  framers  preserved  them  from  error.  But  with  the 
multiplication  of  men  there  went  ever  a  multiplication  of  their 
wants.  Stronger  and  more  lasting  impressions  were,  therefore, 
needed,  in  order  to  turn  them  back  from  repeated  lapses  to  that 
primitive  state  of  disunion  which  each  return  to  it  rendered  worse. 
Those  primitive  delusions,  therefore,  which  peopled  the  earth 
with  false  divinities  and  created  an  invisible  universe  that  gov¬ 
erned  our  own,  conferred  a  great  benefit  —  I  mean  a  great  politi¬ 
cal  benefit  —  upon  humanity.  Those  men  were  benefactors  of 
their  kind  who  dared  to  deceive  them  and  drag  them,  docile  and 
ignorant,  to  worship  at  such  altars.  By  presenting  to  them  ob¬ 
jects  that  lay  beyond  the  scope  of  sense  and  fled  from  their  grasp 
the  nearer  they  seemed  to  approach  them, — never  despised,  be-  • 
cause  never  well  understood, —  they  concentrated  their  divided  pas¬ 
sions  upon  a  single  object  of  supreme  interest  to  them.  These 
were  the  first  steps  of  all  the  nations  that  formed  themselves 
out  of  savage  tribes;  this  was  the  epoch  when  larger  communi¬ 
ties  were  formed,  and  such  was  their  necessary  and  perhaps  their 
only  bond.  I  say  nothing  of  that  chosen  people  of  God,  for 
whom  the  most  extraordinary  miracles  and  the  most  signal  favors 
were  a  substitute  for  human  policy.  But  as  it  is  the  quality  of 
error  to  fall  into  infinite  subdivisions,  so  the  sciences  that  grew 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


423 


out  of  it  made  of  mankind  a  blind  fanatical  multitude,  which, 
shut  up  within  a  close  labyrinth,  collides  in  such  confusion,  that 
some  sensitive  and  philosophical  minds  have  regretted  to  this  day 
the  ancient  savage  state.  That  is  the  first  epoch  in  which  the 
sciences  or  rather  scientific  opinions  are  injurious. 

The  second  epoch  of  history  consists  in  the  hard  and  terrible 
transition  from  error  to  truth,  from  the  darkness  of  ignorance 
to  the  light.  The  great  clash  between  the  errors  which  are 
serviceable  to  a  few  men  of  power  and  the  truths  which  are  serv¬ 
iceable  to  the  weak  and  the  many,  and  the  contact  and  the  fer¬ 
mentation  of  the  passions  at  such  a  period  aroused,  are  a  source 
of  infinite  evils  to  unhappy  humanity.  Whoever  ponders  on  the 
different  histories  of  the  world,  which  after  certain  intervals  of 
time  are  so  much  alike  in  their  principal  episodes,  will  therein 
frequently  observe  the  sacrifice  of  a  whole  generation  to  the  wel¬ 
fare  of  succeeding  ones,  in  the  painful  but  necessary  transitions 
from  the  darkness  of  ignorance  to  the  light  of  philosophy,  and 
from  despotism  to  freedom,  which  result  from  the  sacrifice.  But 
when  truth,  whose  progress  at  first  is  slow  and  afterwards  rapid 
(after  men’s  minds  have  calmed  down  and  the  fire  is  quenched 
that  purged  a  nation  of  the  evils  it  suffered),  sits  as  the  compan¬ 
ion  of  kings  upon  the  throne,  and  is  reverenced  and  worshiped 
in  the  parliaments  of  free  governments,  who  will  ever  dare  assert 
that  the  light  which  enlightens  the  people  is  more  injurious  than 
darkness,  and  that  acknowledging  the  true  and  simple  relations 
of  things  is  pernicious  to  mankind  ? 

If  blind  ignorance  is  less  pernicious  than  confused  half¬ 
knowledge,  since  the  latter  adds  to  the  evils  of  ignorance  those 
of  error,  which  is  unavoidable  in  a  narrow  view  of  the  limits  of 
truth,  the  most  precious  gift  that  a  sovereign  c?^  make  to  him¬ 
self  or  to  his  people  is  an  enlightened  man  as  the  trustee  and 
guardian  of  the  sacred  laws.  Accustomed  to  see  the  truth  and 
not  to  fear  it;  independent  for  the  most  part  of  the  demands  of 
reputation,  which  are  never  completely  satisfied  and  put  most 
men’s  virtue  to  a  trial;  used  to  consider  humanity  from  higher 
points  of  view;  such  a  man  regards  his  own  nation  as  a  family 
of  men  and  of  brothers,  and  the  distance  between  the  nobles  and 
the  people  seems  to  him  so  much  the  less  as  he  has  before  his 
mind  the  larger  total  of  the  whole  human  species.  Philosophers 
acquire  wants  and  interests  unknown  to  the  generality  of  men, — 
but  that  one  above  all  others,  of  not  belying  in  public  the  prin- 


424  THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 

ciples  they  have  taught  in  obscurity, —  and  they  gain  the  habit  of 
loving  the  truth  for  its  own  sake.  A  selection  of  such  men 
makes  the  happiness  of  a  people,  but  a  happiness  which  is  only 
transitory,  unless  good  laws  so  increase  their  number  as  to  lessen 
the  probability,  always  considerable,  of  an  unfortunate  choice. 

Another  way  of  preventing  crimes  is  to  interest  the  magis. 
trates  who  carry  out  the  laws  in  seeking  rather  to  preserve  than 
to  corrupt  them.  The  greater  the  number  of  men  who  compose 
the  magistracy,  the  less  danger  will  there  be  of  their  exercising 
any  undue  power  over  the  laws;  for  venality  is  more  difficult 
among  men  who  are  under  the  close  observation  of  one  another; 
and  their  inducement  to  increase  their  individual  authority  dimin¬ 
ishes  in  proportion  to  the  smallness  of  the  share  of  it  that  can 
fall  to  each  of  them,  especially  when  they  compare  it  with  the 
risk  of  the  attempt.  If  the  sovereign  accustoms  his  subjects,  by 
formalities  and  pomp,  by  severe  edicts,  and  by  refusal  to  hear 
the  grievances,  whether  just  or  unjust,  of  the  man  who  thinks 
himself  oppressed,  to  fear  rather  the  magistrates  than  the  laws, 
it  will  be  more  to  the  profit  of  the  magistrates  than  to  the  gain 
of  private  and  public  security. 

Another  way  to  prevent  crimes  is  to  reward  virtue.  On  this 
head  I  notice  a  general  silence  in  the  laws  of  all  nations  to  this 
day.  If  prizes  offered  by  academies  to  the  discoverers  of  useful 
truths  have  caused  the  multiplication  of  knowledge  and  of  good 
books,  why  should  not  virtuous  actions  also  be  multiplied,  by 
prizes  distributed  from  the  munificence  of  the  sovereign  ?  The 
money  of  honor  ever  remains  unexhausted  and  fruitful  in  the 
hands  of  the  legislator  who  wisely  distributes  it. 

Lastly,  the  surest  but  most  difficult  means  of  preventing 
crimes  is  to  improve  education  —  a  subject  too  vast  for  present 
discussion,  and  lying  beyond  the  limits  of  my  treatise;  a  subject, 
I  will  also  say,  too  intimately  connected  with  the  nature  of  gov¬ 
ernment  for  it  ever  to  be  aught  but  a  barren  field,  only  culti¬ 
vated  here  and  there  by  a  few  philosophers,  down  to  the  remot¬ 
est  ages  of  public  prosperity.  A  great  man,  who  enlightens  the 
humanity  that  persecutes  him,  has  shown  in  detail  the  chief 
educational  maxims  of  real  utility  to  mankind:  namely,  that  it 
consists  less  in  a  barren  multiplicity  of  subjects  than  in  their 
choice  selection;  in  substituting  originals  for  copies  in  the  moral 
as  in  the  physical  phenomena  presented  by  chance  or  intention 
to  the  fresh  minds  of  youth;  in  inclining  them  to  virtue  by  the 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


425 


easy  path  of  feeling;  and  in  deterring  them  from  evil  by  the 
sure  path  of  necessity  and  disadvantage,  not  by  the  uncertain 
method  of  command,  which  never  obtains  more  than  a  simulated 
and  transitory  obedience. 

Complete.  From  <(  Crimes  and  Punishments. » 


LAWS  AND  HUMAN  HAPPINESS 

Men  for  the  most  part  leave  the  regulation  of  their  chief  con¬ 
cerns  to  the  prudence  of  the  moment,  or  to  the  discretion 
of  those  whose  interest  it  is  to  oppose  the  wisest  laws; 
such  laws,  namely,  as  naturally  help  to  diffuse  the  benefits  of 
life,  and  check  that  tendency  they  have  to  accumulate  in  the 
hands  of  a  few,  which  ranges  on  one  side  the  extreme  of  power 
and  happiness,  and  on  the  other  all  that  is  weak  and  wretched. 
It  is  only,  therefore,  after  having  passed  through  a  thousand  er¬ 
rors  in  matters  that  most  nearly  touch  their  lives  and  liberties, 
only  after  weariness  of  evils  that  have  been  suffered  to  reach  a 
climax,  that  men  are  induced  to  seek  a  remedy  for  the  abuses 
which  oppress  them,  and  to  recognize  the  clearest  truths,  which 
precisely  on  account  of  their  simplicity  escape  the  notice  of  ordi¬ 
nary  minds,  unaccustomed  as  they  are  to  analyze  things,  and  apt 
to  receive  their  impressions  from  tradition  rather  than  from 
inquiry. 

We  shall  see,  if  we  open  histories,  that  laws,  which  are  or 
ought  to  be  covenants  between  free  men,  have  generally  been 
nothing  but  the  instrument  of  the  passions  of  some  few  men,  or 
the  result  of  some  accidental  and  temporary  necessity.  They 
have  never  been  dictated  by  an  unimpassioned  student  of  human 
nature,  able  to  concentrate  the  actions  of  a  multitude  of  men  to 
a  single  point  of  view,  and  to  consider  them  from  that  point 
alone  —  the  greatest  happiness  divided  among  tlie  greatest  num¬ 
ber.  Happy  are  those  few  nations  which  have  not  waited  for  the 
slow  movement  of  human  combinations  and  changes  to  cause  an 
approach  to  better  things,  after  intolerable  evils,  but  have  has¬ 
tened  the  intermediate  steps  by  good  laws;  and  deserving  is  that 
philosopher  of  the  gratitude  of  mankind  who  had  the  courage, 
from  the  obscurity  of  his  despised  study,  to  scatter  abroad  among 
the  people  the  first  seeds,  so  long  fruitless,  of  useful  truths. 


426 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


The  knowledge  of  the  true  relations  between  a  sovereign  and 
his  subjects  and  of  those  between  those  of  different  nations;  the 
revival  of  commerce  by  the  light  of  philosophical  truths,  diffused 
by  printing;  and  the  silent  international  contest  of  industry,  the 
most  humane  and  the  most  worthy  of  rational  men  —  these  are 
the  fruits  we  owe  to  the  enlightenment  of  this  century.  But 
how  few  have  examined  and  combated  the  cruelty  of  punish¬ 
ments  and  the  irregularities  of  criminal  procedures,  a  part  of 
legislation  so  elementary  and  yet  so  neglected  in  almost  the 
whole  of  Europe;  and  how  few  have  sought,  by  a  return  to  first 
principles,  to  dissipate  the  mistakes  accumulated  by  many  cen¬ 
turies,  or  to  mitigate,  with  at  least  that  force  which  belongs 
only  to  ascertained  truths,  the  excessive  caprice  of  ill-directed 
power,  which  has  presented  up  to  this  time  but  one  long  example 
of  lawful  and  cold-blooded  atrocity!  And  yet  the  groans  of  the 
weak,  sacrificed  to  the  cruelty  of  the  ignorant  or  to  the  indo¬ 
lence  of  the  rich;  the  barbarous  tortures,  multiplied  with  a 
severity  as  useless  as  it  is  prodigal,  for  crimes  either  not  proved 
or  quite  chimerical;  the  disgusting  horrors  of  a  prison,  enhanced 
by  that  which  is  the  cruelest  executioner  of  the  miserable  — 
namely,  uncertainty;  —  these  ought  to  startle  those  rulers  whose 
function  it  is  to  guide  the  opinion  of  men’s  minds. 

The  immortal  Montesquieu  has  treated  cursorily  of  this 
matter;  and  truth,  which  is  indivisible,  has  forced  me  to  follow 
the  luminous  footsteps  of  this  great  man;  but  thinking  men,  for 
whom  I  write,  will  be  able  to  distinguish  my  steps  from  his. 
Happy  shall  I  esteem  myself  if,  like  him,  I  shall  succeed  in 
obtaining  the  secret  gratitude  of  the  unknown  and  peaceable  fol¬ 
lowers  of  reason,  and  if  I  shall  inspire  them  with  that  pleasing 
thrill  of  emotion  with  which  sensitive  minds  respond  to  the  ad¬ 
vocate  of  the  interests  of  humanity. 

.  *  /  To#ex$mine  and  distinguish  all  the  different  sorts  of  crimes 
and  the  'juan'n^  of  punishing  them  would  now  be  our  natural 
task,  were  it  nft  that  their  nature,  which  varies  with  the  differ¬ 
ent  circumstances  of  times  and  places,  would  compel  us  to  enter 
upon  too  vast  and  wearisome  a  mass  of  detail.  But  it  will  suf¬ 
fice  to  indicate  the  most  general  principles  and  the  most  perni¬ 
cious  and  common  errors,  in  order  to  undeceive  no  less  those 
who,  from  a  mistaken  love  of  liberty,  would  introduce  anarchy, 
than  those  who  would  be  glad  to  reduce  their  fellow-men  to  the 
uniform  regularity  of  a  convent. 


t 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


427 


What  will  be  the  penalty  suitable  for  such  and  such  crimes  ? 

Is  death  a  penalty  really  useful  and  necessary  for  the  security 
and  good  order  of  society  ? 

Are  torture  and  torments  just,  and  do  they  attain  the  end 
which  the  law  aims  at  ? 

What  is  the  best  way  of  preventing  crimes  ? 

Are  the  same  penalties  equally  useful  in  all  times  ? 

What  influence  have  they  on  customs  ? 

These  problems  deserve  to  be  solved  with  such  geometrical 
precision  as  shall  suffice  to  prevail  over  the  clouds  of  sophistica¬ 
tion,  over  seductive  eloquence,  or  timid  doubt.  Had  I  no  other 
merit  than  that  of  having  been  the  first  to  make  clearer  to  Italy 
that  which  other  nations  have  dared  to  write  and  are  beginning 
to  practice,  I  should  deem  myself  fortunate;  but  if,  in  maintain¬ 
ing  the  rights  of  men  and  of  invincible  truth,  I  should  contribute 
to  rescue  from  the  spasms  and  agonies  of  death  any  unfortunate 
victim  of  tyranny  or  ignorance,  both  so  equally  fatal,  the  bless¬ 
ings  and  tears  of  a  single  innocent  man  in  the  transports  of  his 
joy  would  console  me  for  the  contempt  of  mankind. 


Complete.  From  «  Crimes  and  Punishments. w 


AGAINST  CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT 


apital  punishment  is  injurious  by  the  example  of  barbarity 


it  presents.  If  human  passions,  or  the  necessities  of  war, 


have  taught  men  to  shed  one  another’s  blood,  the  laws, 
which  are  intended  to  moderate  human  conduct,  ought  not  to 
extend  the  savage  example,  which  in  the  case  of  a  legal  execu¬ 
tion  is  all  the  more  baneful  in  that  it  is  carried  out  with  studied 
formalities.  To  me  it  seems  an  absurdity  that  laws,  which  are 
the  expression  of  the  public  will,  which  abhor  and  which  punish 
homicide,  should  themselves  commit  one;  and  tha#,  to  deter  citi- 
zens  from  private  assassination,  they  should  themsdlves  order  pub¬ 
lic  manslaughter.  What  are  the  true  and  most  useful  laws  ?  Are 
they  not  those  covenants  and  conditions  which  all  would  wish 
observed  and  proposed,  when  the  incessant  voice  of  private  inter¬ 
est  is  hushed  or  is  united  with  the  interest  of  the  public  ?  What 
are  every  man’s  feelings  about  capital  punishment  ?  Let  us  read 
them  in  the  gestures  of  indignation  and  scorn  with  which  every¬ 
one  looks  upon  the  executioner,  who  is,  after  all,  an  innocent 


428 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


administrator  of  the  public  will,  a  good  citizen  contributory  to- 
the  public  welfare,  an  instrument  as  necessary  for  the  internal 
security  of  a  state  as  brave  soldiers  are  for  its  external.  What, 
then,  is  the  source  of  this  contradiction;  and  why  is  this  feeling, 
in  spite  of  reason,  ineradicable  in  mankind  ?  Because  men  in 
their  most  secret  hearts,  that  part  of  them  which  more  than  any 
other  still  preserves  the  original  form  of  their  first  nature,  have 
ever  believed  that  their  lives  lie  at  no  one’s  disposal,  save  in  that 
of  necessity  alone,  which,  with  its  iron  sceptre,  rules  the  universe. 

What  should  men  think  when  they  see  wise  magistrates  and 
grave  priests  of  justice  with  calm  indifference  causing  a  crim¬ 
inal  to  be  dragged  by  their  slow  precedure  to  death;  or  when 
they  see  a  judge,  while  a  miserable  wretch  in  the  convulsions  of 
his  last  agonies  is  awaiting  the  fatal  blow,  pass  away  coldly  and 
unfeelingly,  perhaps  even  with  a  secret  satisfaction  in  his  author¬ 
ity,  to  enjoy  the  comforts  and  pleasures  of  life?  “Ah,®  they  will 
say,  <(  these  laws  are  but  the  pretexts  of  force,  and  the  studied, 
cruel  formalities  of  justice  are  but  a  conventional  language,  used 
for  the  purpose  of  immolating  us  with  greater  safety,  like  victims 
destined  in  sacrifice  to  the  insatiable  idol  of  tyranny.  That  assas¬ 
sination  which  they  preach  to  us  as  so  terrible  a  misdeed  we  see 
nevertheless  employed  by  them  without  either  scruple  or  passion. 
Let  us  profit  by  the  example.  A  violent  death  seemed  to  us  a 
terrible  thing  in  the  .descriptions  of  it  that  were  made  to  us,  but 
we  see  it  is  a  matter  of  a  moment.  How  much  less  terrible  will 
it  be  for  a  man  who,  not  expecting  it,  is  spared  all  that  there  is 
of  pain  in  it.® 

Such  are  the  fatal  arguments  employed,  if  not  clearly,  at  least 
vaguely,  by  men  disposed  to  crimes,  among  whom,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  abuse  of  religion  is  more  potent  than  religion  itself. 

If  I  am  confronted  with  the  example  of  almost  all  ages  and 
almost  all  nations  who  have  inflicted  the  punishment  of  death 
upon  some  crimes,  I  will  reply  that  the  example  avails  nothing 
before  truth,  against  which  there  is  no  prescription  of  time;  and 
that  the  history  of  mankind  conveys  to  us  the  idea  of  an  immense 
sea  of  errors,  among  which  a  few  truths,  confusedly  and  at  long 
intervals,  float  on  the  surface.  Human  sacrifices  were  once  com¬ 
mon  to  almost  all  nations,  yet  who  for  that  reason  will  dare  de¬ 
fend  them  ?  That  some  few  states,  and  for  a  short  time  only, 
should  have  abstained  from  inflicting  death,  rather  favors  my 
argument  than  otherwise,  because  such  a  fact  is  in  keeping  with 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  BECCARIA 


429 


the  lot  of  all  great  truths,  whose  duration  is  but  as  the  lightning 
flash  in  comparison  with  the  long  and  dark  night  that  envelops 
mankind.  That  happy  time  has  not  yet  arrived  when  truth,  as 
error  has  hitherto  done,  shall  belong  to  the  majority  of  men;  and 
from  this  universal  law  of  the  reign  of  error  those  truths  alone 
have  hitherto  been  exempt,  which  supreme  wisdom  has  seen  fit 
to  distinguish  from  others,  by  making  them  the  subject  of  a  spe¬ 
cial  revelation. 

The  voice  of  a  philosopher  is  feeble  against  the  noise  and 
cries  of  so  many  followers  of  blind  custom,  but  the  few  wise  men 
scattered  over  the  face  of  the  earth  will  respond  to  me  from 
their  inmost  hearts. 


From  <(  Crimes  and  Punishments. » 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

(1813-1887) 


Ward  Beecher’s  (<  Star  Papers })  show  the  same  control 
musical  English  which  made  his  sermons  and  orations 
ious.  They  are  evidently  inspired  by  a  determination  to 
succeed  in  doing  something  wholly  unlike  preaching,  and  their  success 
in  this  respect  is  marked.  They  are  pleasant  conversations  with  the 
reader  on  subjects  in  which  all  healthy  people  ought  to  be  interested 
—  books,  flowers,  the  woods, —  even  <(  angleworms,  white  grubs,  and 
bugs  that  carry  pick  and  shovel  on  the  head.})  He  gossips  over 
these  in  the  most  genial  and  companionable  way,  and  if  sometimes 
he  shows  the  result  of  ex  cathedra  habits  of  teaching,  no  pupil  who 
is  worthy  to  be  well  taught  will  blame  him  for  it.  He  was  born  at 
Litchfield,  Connecticut,  June  24th,  1813,  and  died  March  8th,  1887,  at 
Brooklyn.  As  a  pulpit  orator  he  ranks  with  Phillips  Brooks  whom 
he  surpasses  in  power  of  pleasing  expression,  though  surpassed  by 
him  in  insight.  As  an  essayist,  he  shows  the  influence  of  Addison 
and  Irving,  with  occasional  suggestions  of  the  homely  humor  of  Izaak 
Walton. 


DREAM-CULTURE 


There  is  something  in  the  owning  of  a  piece  of  ground  which 
affects  me  as  did  the  old  ruins  of  England.  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  the  value  of  a  farm  is  not  chiefly  in  its  crops 
of  cereal  grain,  its  orchards  of  fruit,  and  in  its  herds;  but  in 
those  larger  and  more  easily  reaped  harvests  of  associations, 
fancies,  and  dreamy  broodings  which  it  begets.  From  boyhood  I 
have  associated  classical  civic  virtues  and  old  heroic  integrity 
with  the  soil.  No  one  who  has  peopled  his  young  brain  with 
the  fancies  of  Grecian  mythology,  but  comes  to  feel  a  certain 
magical  sanctity  for  the  earth.  The  very  smell  of  fresh-turned 
earth  brings  up  as  many  dreams  and  visions  of  the  country  as 
sandalwood  does  of  Oriental  scenes.  At  any  rate,  I  feel,  in  walk¬ 
ing  under  these  trees  and  about  these  slopes,  something  of  that 
enchantment  of  the  vague  and  mysterious  glimpses  of  the  past,. 


HE  NR  V 


WA  RD  BEECHER 


iVH 


WVi 


wmmm. 
fmw-s  -4& 

s&SSssSmsEss 


mmsfe, 

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SSiSI 


22253 


w^uiwjitot 


r:s£££<ii» 


UNIVERSE  of  MW 

URBAN* 


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/ 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 


431 


which  I  once  felt  about  the  ruins  of  Kenilworth  Castle.  For 
thousands  of  years  this  piece  of  ground  hath  wrought  its  tasks. 
Old  slumberous  forests  used  to  darken  it;  innumerable  deer  have 
trampled  across  it;  foxes  have  blinked  through  its  bushes;  and 
wolves  have  howled  and  growled  as  they  pattered  along  its  rust¬ 
ling  leaves  with  empty  maws.  How  many  birds;  how  many 
flocks  of  pigeons,  thousands  of  years  ago;  how  many  hawks  dash¬ 
ing  wildly  among  them;  how  many  insects,  nocturnal  and  diur¬ 
nal;  how  many  mailed  bugs,  and  limber  serpents  gliding  among 
mossy  stones,  have  had  possession  here  before  my  day!  It  will 
not  be  long  before  I  too  shall  be  as  wasted  and  recordless  as 
they. 

Doubtless  the  Indians  made  this  a  favorite  resort.  Their 
sense  of  beauty  in  natural  scenery  is  proverbial.  Where  else,  in 
all  this  region,  could  they  find  a  more  glorious  amphitheatre  ? 
But  thick-studded  forests  may  have  hidden  from  them  the  scenic 
glory,  and  left  it  to  solace  another  race.  I  walk  over  the  ground 
wondering  what  lore  of  wild  history  I  should  read  if  all  that  ever 
lived  upon  this  round  and  sloping  hill  had  left  an  invisible  record, 
unreadable  except  by  such  eyes  as  mine,  that  seeing,  see  not, 
and  not  seeing,  do  plainly  see. 

Then,  while  I  stand  upon  the  crowning  point  of  the  hill,  from 
which  I  can  behold  every  foot  of  the  hundred  acres,  and  think 
what  is  going  on,  what  gigantic  powers  are  silently  working,  I 
feel  as  if  all  the  workmanship  that  was  stored  in  the  Crystal 
Palace  was  not  to  be  compared  with  the  subtle  machinery  all 
over  this  round.  What  chemists  could  find  solvents  to  liquefy 
these  rocks  ?  But  soft  rains  and  roots  small  as  threads  dissolve 
them  and  recompose  them  into  stems  and  leaves.  What  an  up¬ 
roar  as  if  a  hundred  stone  quarries  were  being  wrought,  if  one 
should  attempt  to  crush  with  hammers  all  the  flint  and  quartz 
which  the  stroke  of  the  dew  powders  noiselessly!  All  this  turf 
is  but  a  camp  of  soldier-roots,  that  wage  their  battle  upon  the 
elements  with  endless  victory.  There  is  a  greater  marvel  in  this 
defiant  thistle,  which  wearies  the  farmer’s  wits,  taxed  for  its  ex¬ 
termination,  than  in  all  the  repositories  of  New  York  or  London. 
And  these  mighty  trees,  how  easily  do  they  pump  up  and  sus¬ 
tain  supplies  of  moisture  that  it  would  require  scores  of  rattling 
engines  to  lift !  This  farm,  it  is  a  vast  laboratory,  full  of  expert 
chemists.  It  is  a  vast  shop,  full  of  noiseless  machinists.  And  all 
this  is  mine !  These  rocks  that  lie  in  bulk  under  the  pasture 
trees,  and  all  this  moss  that  loves  to  nestle  in  its  crevices  and 


432 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 


clasp  the  invisible  projections  with  its  little  clinging  hands,  and 
all  these  ferns  and  sumach,  these  springs  and  trickling  issues,  are 
mine ! 

Let  me  not  be  puffed  up  with  sudden  wealth!  Let  me  rule 
discreetly  among  my  tenants.  Let  me  see  what  tribes  are  mine. 
There  are  the  black  and  glossy  crickets;  the  gray  crickets;  the 
grasshoppers  of  every  shape  and  hue;  the  silent,  prudent  toad, 
type  of  conservative  wisdom,  wise  looking,  but  slow  hopping;  the 
butterflies  by  day,  and  the  moths  and  millers  by  night;  all  birds, 
— wrens,  sparrows,  kingbirds,  bluebirds,  robins,  and  those  un¬ 
named  warblers  that  make  the  forests  sad  with  their  melancholy 
whistle.  Besides  these,  who  can  register  the  sappers  and  miners 
that  are  always  at  work  in  the  soil;  angleworms,  white  grubs, 
and  bugs  that  carry  pick  and  shovel  on  the  head?  Who  can 
muster  all  the  mice  that  nest  in  the  barn  or  nibble  in  the  stubble- 
field,  and  all  the  beetles  that  sing  bass  in  the  wood’s  edge  to 
the  shrill  treble  of  gnats  and  myriad  mosquitoes  ?  These  are  all 
mine! 

Are  they  mine  ?  Is  it  my  eye  and  hand  that  mark  their 
paths  and  circuits  ?  Do  they  hold  their  life  from  me,  or  do  I 
give  them  their  food  in  due  season  ?  Vastly  as  my  bulk  is 
greater  than  theirs,  am  I  so  much  superior  that  I  can  despise, 
or  even  not  admire  ?  Where  is  the  strength  of  muscle  by  which 
I  can  spring  fifty  times  the  length  of  my  body  ?  That  grasshop¬ 
per’s  thigh  lords  it  over  mine.  Spring  up  now  in  the  evening 
air,  and  fly  towards  the  lights  that  wink  from  yonder  hillside ! 
Ten  million  wings  of  despised  flies  and  useless  insects  are 
mightier  than  hand  or  foot  of  mine.  Each  mortal  thing  carries 
some  quality  of  distinguishing  .excellence  by  which  it  may  glory, 
and  say :  (<  In  this,  I  am  first  in  all  the  world ! 

Since  the  same  hand  made  me  that  made  them,  and  the 
same  care  feeds  them  that  spreads  my  board,  let  there  be  fellow¬ 
ship  between  us.  There  is.  I  have  signed  articles  of  peace  even 
with  the  abdominal  spiders,  who  carry  their  fleece  in  their  belly, 
and  not  on  their  back.  It  is  agreed  that  they  shall  not  cross  the 
Danube  of  my  doors,  and  I,  on  the  other  hand,  will  let  them 
camp  down,  without  wanton  disturbance,  in  my  whole  domain 
beside!  I,  too,  am  but  an  insect  on  a  larger  scale.  Are  there 
not  those  who  tread  with  unsounding  feet  through  the  invisible 
air,  of  being  so  vast,  that  I  seem  to  them  but  a  mite,  a  flitting 
insect  ?  And  of  capacities  so  noble  and  eminent,  that  all  the 
stores  which  I  could  bring  of  thought  and  feeling  to  them  would 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 


433 


be  but  as  the  communing  of  a  grasshopper  with  me,  or  the  chirp 
of  a  sparrow  ? 

No.  It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  true  greatness  to  be  exclusive 
and  arrogant.  If  such  noble  shadows  fill  the  realm,  it  is  their 
nature  to  condescend  and  to  spread  their  power  abroad  for  the 
loving  protection  of  those  whose  childhood  is  little,  but  whose 
immortal  manhood  shall  yet,  through  their  kind  teaching,  stand 
unabashed,  and  not  ashamed,  in  the  very  royalty  of  heaven. 
Only  vulgar  natures  employ  their  superiority  to  task  and  burden 
weaker  natures.  He  whose  genius  and  wisdom  are  but  instru¬ 
ments  of  oppression,  however  covered  and  softened  with  lying 
names,  is  the  beginning  of  a  monster.  The  line  that  divides 
between  the  animal  and  the  divine  is  the  line  of  suffering.  The 
animal,  for  its  own  pleasure,  inflicts  suffering.  The  divine  en¬ 
dures  suffering  for  another’s  pleasure.  Not  then  when  he  went 
up  to  the  proportions  of  original  glory  was  Christ  the  greatest; 
but  when  he  descended,  and  wore  our  form,  and  bore  our  sins 
and  sorrows,  that  by  his  stripes  we  might  be  healed! 

I  have  no  vicarious  mission  for  these  populous  insects.  But 
I  will  at  least  not  despise  their  littleness,  nor  trample  upon  their 
lives.  Yet,  how  may  I  spare  them  ?  At  every  step  I  must  needs 
crush  scores,  and  leave  the  wounded  in  my  path!  Already  I 
have  lost  my  patience  with  that  intolerable  fly,  and  slapped  him 
out  of  being,  and  breathed  out  fiery  vengeance  against  those 
mean  conspirators  that,  night  and  day,  suck  my  blood,  hypocrit¬ 
ically  singing  a  grace  before  their  meal! 

The  chief  use  of  a  farm,  if  it  be  well  selected,  and  of  a 
proper  soil,  is  to  lie  down  upon.  Mine  is  an  excellent  farm  for 
such  uses,  and  I  thus  cultivate  it  every  day.  Large  crops  are 
the  consequence, —  of  great  delights  and  fancies  more  than  the 
brain  can  hold.  My  industry  is  exemplary.  Though  but  a  week 
here,  I  have  lain  down  more  hours  and  in  more  places  than  that 
hard-working  brother  of  mine  in  the  whole  year  that  he  has 
dwelt  here.  Strange  that  industrious  lying  down  should  come  so 
naturally  to  me,  and  standing  up  and  lazing  about  after  the 
plow  or  behind  his  scythe,  so  naturally  to  him!  My  eyes  against 
his  feet!  It  takes  me  but  a  second  to  run  down  that  eastern 
slope,  across  the  meadow,  over  the  road,  up  to  that  long  hillside 
(which  the  benevolent  Mr.  Dorr  is  so  beautifully  planting  with 
shrubbery  for  my  sake  —  blessings  on  him!),  but  his  feet  could 
not  perform  the  task  in  less  than  ten  minutes.  I  can  spring 
n — 28 


434 


HENRY  WAR  I'  BEECHER 


from  Gray  Lock  in  the  north,  through  the  hazy  air,  over  the 
wide  sixty  miles  to  the  dome  of  the  Taconic  Mountains  in  the 
south,  by  a  simple  roll  of  the  eyeball,  a  mere  contraction  of  a 
few  muscles.  Now  let  any  one  try  it  with  his  feet,  and  two 
days  would  scant  suffice!  With  my  head  I  can  sow  the  ground 
with  glorious  harvests;  I  can  build  barns,  fill  them  with  silky 
cows  and  nimble  horses;  I  can  pasture  a  thousand  sheep,  run  in¬ 
numerable  furrows,  sow  every  sort  of  seed,  rear  up  forests  just 
wherever  the  eye  longs  for  them,  build  my  house,  like  Solomon’s 
Temple,  without  the  sound  of  a  hammer.  Ah !  a  mighty  worker  is 
the  head!  These  farmers  that  use  the  foot  and  the  hand  are 
much  to  be  pitied.  I  can  change  my  structures  every  day,  with¬ 
out  expense.  I  can  enlarge  that  gem  of  a  lake  that  lies  yonder, 
twinkling  and  rippling  in  the  sunlight.  I  can  pile  up  rocks 
where  they  ought  to  have  been  found,  for  landscape  effect,  and 
clothe  them  with  the  very  vines  that  ought  to  grow  over  them. 
I  can  transplant  every  tree  that  I  meet  in  my  rides,  and  put  it 
near  my  house  without  the  drooping  of  a  leaf. 

But  of  what  use  is  all  this  fanciful  using  of  the  head  ?  It  is 
a  mere  waste  of  precious  time! 

But,  if  it  give  great  delight,  if  it  keep  the  soul  awake, 
sweet  thoughts  alive  and  sordid  thoughts  dead;  if  it  bring  one 
a  little  out  of  conceit  with  hard  economies,  and  penurious  real¬ 
ity,  and  stingy  self-conceit;  if  it  be  like  a  bath  to  the  soul,  in 
which  it  washes  away  the  grime  of  human  contacts,  and  the 
sweat  and  dust  of  life  among  selfish,  sordid  men;  if  it  make 
the  thoughts  more  supple  to  climb  along  the  ways  where  spirit¬ 
ual  fruits  do  grow;  and,  especially,  if  it  introduce  the  soul  to 
a  fuller  conviction  of  the  Great  Unseen,  and  teach  it  to  esteem 
the  visible  as  less  real  than  things  which  no  eye  can  see,  or 
hands  handle,  it  will  have  answered  a  purpose  which  is  in  vain 
sought  among  stupid  conventionalities. 

At  any  rate,  such  a  discourse  of  the  thoughts  with  things 
which  are  beautiful,  and  such  an  opening  of  the  soul  to  things 
which  are  sweet-breathed,  will  make  one  joyful  at  the  time,  and 
tranquil  thereafter.  And  if  one  fully  believes  that  the  earth  is 
the  Lord’s,  and  that  God  yet  walks  among  leaves  and  trees, 
in  the  cool  of  the  day,  he  will  not  easily  be  persuaded  to  cast 
away  the  belief  that  all  these  vagaries  and  wild  communings  are 
but  those  of  a  child  in  his  father’s  house,  and  that  the  secret 
springs  of  joy  which  they  open  are  touched  of  God! 

Complete.  From  the  <(  Star  Papers. » 


JEREMY  BENTHAM 

(1748-1832) 


illaged  by  all  the  world,  he  remains  always  wealthy,”  Talley¬ 
rand  said  of  Bentham ;  and  in  quoting  the  sentence  Profes¬ 
sor  Holland  says  that  (<to  trace  the  results  of  his  teachings 
in  England  alone  would  be  to  write  the  history  of  the  legislation  of 
half  a  century.”  Taking  from  Beccaria  the  maxim  that  all  govern¬ 
ment  should  be  a  mode  of  securing  the  greatest  possible  good  to 
the  greatest  possible  number  of  people,  he  became  a  power  in  his 
own  generation  and,  through  John  Stuart  Mill,  one  of  the  controlling 
intellectual  forces  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  said  that  (<the 
reading  of  Dumont’s  exposition  of  Bentham’s  doctrines  in  the  ( Traite 
de  la  Legislation >  was  an  epoch  in  Mill’s  life,  awakening  in  him  an 
ambition  as  enthusiastic  and  impassioned  as  a  young  man’s  first  love.” 

Bentham  was  born  in  London,  February  15th,  1748.  It  is  said  that 
at  <(  three  years  old,  he  read  eagerly  such  works  as  Rapin’s  ( History > 
and  began  the  study  of  Latin,”  and  that  (<a  year  or  two  later  he 
learned  the  violin  and  French  conversation.”  This  assertion  made 
by  Professor  Holland,  of  Oxford,  is  no  more  incredible  than  is  the 
actual  achievement  of  Bentham's  mature  intellect,  illustrated  in  the 
results  of  his  attempts  to  force  England  away  from  feudalism.  He 
lived  to  be  eighty-five  years  old,  dying  June  6th,  1832. 


PUBLICITY  THE  SOLE  REMEDY  FOR  MISRULE 

Misrule  is  bad  government;  it  comprehends  whatsoever  is 
opposite  to  good  government.  A  government  is  good  in 
proportion  as  it  contributes  to  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number;  namely,  of  the  members  of  the  community 
in  which  it  has  its  place.  Rule  may  therefore  come  under  the 
denomination  of  misrule  in  either  of  two  ways;  either  by  taking 
for  its  object  the  happiness  of  any  other  number  than  the  great¬ 
est,  or  by  being  more  or  less  unsuccessful  in  its  endeavors  to 
contribute  to  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number. 

No  government  having  anywhere  had  place  that  had  for  its 
main  object  any  other  than  the  greatest  happiness  of  those  among 


436 


JEREMY  BENTHAM 


whom  the  powers  of  government  have  from  time  to  time  been 
shared,  all  governments  that  have  hitherto  had  existence  have 
had  more  or  less  of  bad  in  them.  Of  all  governments,  the  worst 
have  uniformly  been  those  in  which  the  powers  of  government 
have  —  all  of  them  —  been  in  the  hands  of  one ;  because  in  that 
case  such  government  has  had  for  its  object  the  greatest  happi¬ 
ness  of  that  one  number;  and  to  that  object  the  happiness  of  all 
the  other  members  has  of  course  been  made  a  continual  sacri¬ 
fice. 

Considered  in  its  application  to  assignable  individuals,  misrule 
may  be  termed  vexation;  the  persons  considered  as  the  authors 
of  it  being  persons  clothed  with  power,  the  vexation  may  be 
termed  oppression.  In  so  far  as  from  the  burden  thus  imposed 
benefit  in  any  shape  is  received  by  the  authors,  or  by  any  whom 
they  are  in  this  way  disposed  to  favor,  the  oppression  is  depre¬ 
dation. 

As  to  the  authors,  though  to  a  boundless  degree,  and  in  a 
conspicuous  and  avowed  manner,  the  only  persons  whom  op¬ 
pression  and  thence  depredation  can  have  for  its  authors  are 
those  by  whom  in  the  state  in  question  the  supreme  power  is 
possessed;  yet  to  a  great  and  indeterminate  amount,  not  only  their 
several  subordinates, —  instruments  of,  and  sharers  in,  that  same 
power, —  but  the  rich  in  general  possess  as  such,  and  to  an  amount 
rising  in  proportion  to  their  riches,  in  addition  to  that  desire 
which  is  in  all  men,  the  faculty  of  giving  birth  to  those  same 
evils. 

The  shapes  in  which  vexation  is  here  attempted  to  be  com¬ 
bated  are  not  all  the  shapes  in  which  the  evil  is  capable  of 
showing  itself;  for  against  these  thus  taken  in  the  aggregate,  se¬ 
curity  more  or  less  effectual  is  already  in  every  country  taken, 
and  must,  therefore,  in  the  country  in  question,  be  on  the  present 
occasion  supposed  provided  by  the  existing  laws.  Calumnies,  for 
example,  or  personal  injuries  to  mental  or  personal  rights,  are 
among  the  subjects  not  here  taken  on  hand,  as  being  of  such  a 
nature  that  the  particular  remedies  here  provided  are  either 
needless  or  inapplicable,  with  relation  to  them.  The  only  vexa¬ 
tions  belonging  to  the  present  purpose  are  those  which,  on  those 
over  whom  power  is  exercised,  are  in  a  particular  manner  liable 
to  be  inflicted  by  those  by  whom  the  same  power  is  possessed. 
Meantime,  these  being  the  same  persons  at  whose  disposal  every¬ 
thing  is  that  bears  the  name  of  law,  to  seek  to  afford,  by  means 


JEREMY  BENTHAM 


437 


of  new  laws,  security  against  those  persons;  to  seek  to  afford,  by 
means  of  new  laws,  security  against  those  at  whose  disposal 
those  laws  will  be  when  made,  is  an  enterprise  which,  to  a  first 
view,  can  scarcely  fail  to  wear  the  face  of  absurdity.  As  well 
may  it  be  said,  seek  to  obtain  security  against  the  attacks  of  an 
armed  man  by  means  of  other  arms  placed  in  that  same  man’s 
hands.  Such,  it  must  be  confessed,  would  be  the  absurdity,  if  it 
were  necessary  that  the  armor,  in  the  manufacturing  of  which 
he  will  be  requested  to  concur,  should  be  armor  of  the  offensive 
kind,  or  even  of  the  effectually  defensive  kind,  and  that  intended 
to  be  in  any  manner  employed  against  himself.  But  on  his  part 
this  conception  is  not  a  necessary,  nor  altogether  certain  one. 
Against  depredation  and  oppression,  from  which  he  derives  not 
in  any  shape  any  benefit, —  against  depredation  and  oppression, 
exercised  by,  and  for  the  benefit  of,  the  rich  in  general,  or  by 
even  his  own  instruments,  and  other  subordinates  in  particular, 
it  may  happen  to  him  not  to  have  any  strong  or  determinate 
reluctance  to  see  a  tolerably  essential  security  provided;  and  as 
against  any  oppression  which  it  is,  or  may  come  to  be,  his  pleas¬ 
ure  to  exercise,  what  may  happen  is  —  that  it  will  not  be  very 
plainly  visible  to  him  how  it  is  possible  that  any  supposed  se¬ 
curity  can  in  reality  be  efficacious. 

Thus  much  as  to  the  disease.  Now  as  to  the  remedy;  of  the 
two  only  accessible  remedies  that  the  nature  of  the  case  admits 
of,  only  one  belongs  to  the  present  purpose.  For  conveying  a 
general  idea  of  the  remedy,  a  single  word  —  publicity  —  may  for 
the  moment  serve;  but  before  the  nature  and  operation  of  it  can 
be  conceived  with  any  tolerable  degree  of  distinctness  and  clear¬ 
ness,  considerable  explanations  will  unavoidably  be  necessary. 

Publicity !  but  to  what  acts  applied  ?  In  the  first  place  to  the 
acts  of  rulers*  in  the  next  place  to  the  opinions  formed  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  them  by  subjects;  publicity  to  the  acts, — knowledge  of 
the  acts  being  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  opinions. 

The  existence  of  such  publicity  being  supposed,  and  the  de¬ 
gree  of  it  perfect,  in  what  way  does  it  contribute  to  the  object 
in  question,  —  namely,  the  affording  security  against  misrule  ? 
Be  the  acts  of  the  government  ever  so  arbitrary,  the  subjects 
may,  in  proportion  as  they  form  and  make  public  their  respective 
opinions,  in  relation  to  them,  act  in  so  far,  in  the  character  of 
judges;  judges  sitting  in  judgment  over  the  conduct  of,  and  in 
this  way  exercising  rule  over,  the  rulers  themselves. 


43^ 


JEREMY  BENTHAM 


Exercising  in  any  way  rule  over  their  rulers;  how  then  is  it 
that  they  can  remain  subjects  ?  In  the  way  of  direct  mandate 
and  coercive  powers;  —  no;  in  no  such  way  can  they  give  direc¬ 
tion  to  the  conduct  of  these  same  rulers.  Yes,  in  the  way  of  in¬ 
direct  and  gentle  power,  or  in  one  word,  influence;  for  in  this 
way  do  our  children,  at  an  age  in  which  nature  places  them  un¬ 
der  the  absolute  dominion  of  their  parents,  operate  on  the  con¬ 
duct  of  those  same  parents.  But  the  particular  way  in  which  the 
effect  is  brought  about  may  call  for  further  explanation. 

Operating  thus  as  judges,  the  members  of  this  same  commun¬ 
ity  may,  in  their  aggregate  capacity,  be  considered  as  constituting 
a  sort  of  judiciary  or  tribunal;  call  it,  for  example,  the  Public- 
Opinion  Tribunal. 

Those  who  desire  to  see  any  check  whatsoever  to  the  power 
of  the  government  under  which  they  live,  or  any  limit  to  their 
sufferings  under  it,  must  look  for  such  check  and  limit  to  the 
source  of  the  Public-Opinion  Tribunal,  irregular  though  it  be, 
and,  to  the  degree  in  which  it  has  been  seen,  fictitious;  to  this 
place  of  refuge,  or  to  none;  for  no  other  has  the  nature  of  things 
afforded.  To  this  tribunal  they  must,  on  every  occasion,  make 
appeal.  To  this  tribunal  they  must,  on  every  occasion,  give  what 
contribution  it  is  in  their  power  to  give;  for  to  do  what  they 
can,  never  can  they  give  to  it  too  much  praise;  never  can  they 
give  to  it  enough;  never  can  they  give  to  it  so  much  as,  for  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  it  would  be  desirable 
that  it  should  have. 


PROPERTY  AND  POVERTY 

rpHE  laws  in  creating  property  have  created  wealth;  but,  with 
|  respect  to  poverty,  it  is  not  the  work  of  the  laws, —  it  is  the 
primitive  condition  of  the  human  race.  The  man  who  lives 
only  from  day  to  day  is  precisely  the  man  in  a  state  of  nature. 
The  savage,  the  poor  in  society,  I  acknowledge,  obtain  nothing 
but  by  painful  labor;  but  in  a  state  of  nature  what  could  he  ob¬ 
tain  but  at  the  price  of  his  toil  ?  Has  not  hunting  its  fatigues, 
fishing  its  dangers,  war  its  uncertainties  ?  And  if  man  appear  to 
love  this  adventurous  life  —  if  he  have  an  instinct  greedy  of  these 
kinds  of  peril  —  if  the  savage  rejoice  in  the  delights  of  an  idle¬ 
ness  so  dearly  purchased  —  ought  it  to  be  concluded  that  he  is 


JEREMY  IVKNTHAM 


439 


more  happy  tlian  our  day  laborers  ?  No,  the  labor  of  these  is 
more  uniform,  but  the  reward  is  more  certain;  the  lot  of  woman 
is  more  gentle;  infancy  and  old  age  have  more  resources;  the 
species  multiplies  in  a  proportion  a  thousand  times  greater,  and 
this  alone  would  suffice  to  show  on  which  side  is  the  superiority 
of  happiness.  Hence  the  laws,  in  creating  property,  have  been 
benefactors  to  those  who  remain  in  their  original  poverty.  They 
participate  more  or  less  in  the  pleasures,  advantages,  and  re¬ 
sources  of  civilized  society;  their  industry  and  labor  place  them 
among  the  candidates  for  fortune;  they  enjoy  the  pleasures  of 
acquisition;  hope  mingles  with  their  labors.  The  security  which 
the  law  gives  them,  is  this  of  little  importance  ?  Those  who  look 
from  above  at  the  inferior  ranks  see  all  objects  less  than  they 
really  are;  but,  at  the  base  of  the  pyramid,  it  is  the  summit 
which  disappears  in  its  turn.  So  far  from  making  these  com¬ 
parisons,  they  dream  not  of  them;  they  are  not  tormented  with 
impossibilities;  so  that,  all  things  considered,  the  protection  of 
the  laws  contributes  as  much  to  the  happiness  of  the  cottage  as 
to  the  security  of  the  palace.  It  is  surprising  that  so  judicious 
a  writer  as  Beccaria  should  have  inserted,  in  a  work  dictated  by 
the  soundest  philosophy,  a  doubt  subversive  of  the  social  order. 
<(  The  right  of  property, says  he,  (<  is  a  terrible  right,  and  may  not, 
perhaps,  be  necessary. })  Upon  this  right  tyrannical  and  sangui¬ 
nary  laws  have  been  founded.  It  has  been  most  frightfully 
abused;  but  the  right  itself  presents  only  ideas  of  pleasure,  of 
abundance,  and  of  security.  It  is  this  right  which  has  overcome 
the  natural  aversion  to  labor — which  has  bestowed  on  man  the 
empire  of  the  earth  —  which  has  led  nations  to  give  up  their 
wandering  habits  —  which  has  created  a  love  of  country  and  pos¬ 
terity.  To  enjoy  quickly  —  to  enjoy  without  punishment  —  this  is 
the  universal  desire  of  man;  this  is  the  desire  which  is  terrible, 
since  it  arms  all  those  who  possess  nothing  against  those  who 
possess  anything.  But  the  law  which  restrains  this  desire  is  the 
most  splendid  triumph  of  humanity  over  itself. 


440 


GEORGE  BERKELEY 

(1685-1753) 

eorge  Berkeley,  Bishop  of  Cloyne,  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
English  metaphysicians,  was  born  at  Dysert  Castle,  near 
Thomastown,  Ireland,  March  12th,  1685.  After  graduating 
with  honor  from  the  University  of  Dublin  and  entering  the  ministry 
of  the  Church  of  England,  he  went  to  London  where  he  became  asso¬ 
ciated  with  Swift  and  other  (<wits”  of  that  remarkable  period.  He 
was  one  of  the  contributors  to  the  Guardian  when  it  was  founded 
in  1713,  and  in  making  acknowledgment,  its  publisher  declared  that 
<(Mr.  Berkeley,  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  had  embellished  its  columns 
with  many  excellent  arguments  in  honor  of  religion  and  virtue. ” 
Through  Swift  he  met  (<  Vanessa  ”  (Miss  Vanhomrigh),  at  whose  death 
he  found  himself  the  legatee  of  half  her  fortune  —  though  it  is  said 
they  never  saw  each  other  after  the  first  meeting.  In  philosophy 
Berkeley  stands  for  the  tenet  that  matter  exists  only  as  a  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  mind.  His  (<  Commonplace  Book,”  <(  The  Principles  of  Human 
Knowledge,”  and  his  <(  Alciphron ”  are  his  principal  works,  though 
his  discourse  on  tar  water,  (<  Siris,  a  Chain  of  Philosophical  Reflec¬ 
tions  and  Inquiries  concerning  the  Virtues  of  Tar  Water,  etc.,”  has 
been  made  celebrated  by  its  own  originality,  and  still  more,  perhaps, 
by  the  sense  of  humor  of  those  who  dissent  from  his  system  of  meta¬ 
physics.  He  died  at  Oxford,  January  14th,  1753- 


PLEASURES  NATURAL  AND  FANTASTICAL 

-  quce  possit  facer  e  et  servare  beatum. 

Hor.  Lib.  I.,  Ep.  vi.  2. 

To  make  men  happy  and  to  keep  them  so. 

—  Creech. 

It  is  of  great  use  to  consider  the  pleasures  wdiich  constitute 
human  happiness,  as  they  are  distinguished  into  natural  and 
fantastical.  Natural  pleasures  I  call  those,  which,  not  depend¬ 
ing  on  the  fashion  and  caprice  of  any  particular  age  or  nation, 
are  suited  to  human  nature  in  general,  and  were  intended  by 
Providence  as  rewards  for  using  our  faculties  agreeably  to  the 


GEORGE  BERKELEY 


ends  for  which  they  were  given  us.  Fantastical  pleasures  are 
those  which,  having  no  natural  fitness  to  delight  our  minds,  pre¬ 
suppose  some  particular  whim  or  taste  accidentally  prevailing  in 
a  set  of  people,  to  which  it  is  owing  that  they  please. 

Now  I  take  it  that  the  tranquillity  and  cheerfulness  with 
which  I  have  passed  my  life  are  the  effect  of  having,  ever  since 
I  came  to  years  of  discretion,  continued  my  inclinations  to  the 
former  sort  of  pleasures.  But  as  my  experience  can  be  a  rule 
only  to  my  own  actions,  it  may  probably  be  a  stronger  motive 
to  induce  others  to  the  same  scheme  of  life,  if  they  would  con¬ 
sider  that  we  are  prompted  to  natural  pleasures  by  an  instinct 
impressed  on  our  minds  by  the  Author  of  our  nature,  who  best 
understands  our  frames,  and  consequently  best  knows  what  those 
pleasures  are  which  will  give  us  the  least  uneasiness  in  the  pur¬ 
suit,  and  the  greatest  satisfaction  in  the  enjoyment  of  them. 
Hence  it  follows  that  the  objects  of  our  natural  desires  are 
cheap,  or  easy  to  be  obtained,  it  being  a  maxim  that  holds 
throughout  the  whole  system  of  created  beings,  <(  that  nothing  is 
made  in  vain,”  much  less  the  instincts  and  appetites  of  animals, 
which  the  benevolence,  as  well  as  wisdom  of  the  Deity,  is  con¬ 
cerned  to  provide  for.  Nor  is  the  fruition  of  those  objects  less- 
pleasing  than  the  acquisition  is  easy;  and  the  pleasure  is  height¬ 
ened  by  the  sense  of  having  answered  some  natural  end,  and  the 
consciousness  of  acting  in  concert  with  the  Supreme  Governor  of 
the  universe. 

Under  natural  pleasures  I  comprehend  those  which  are  uni¬ 
versally  suited,  as  well  to  the  rational  as  the  sensual  part  of  our 
nature.  And  of  the  pleasures  which  affect  our  senses,  those  only 
are  to  be  esteemed  natural  that  are  contained  within  the  rules  of 
reason,  which  is  allowed  to  be  as  necessary  an  ingredient  of  hu¬ 
man  nature  as  sense.  And,  indeed,  excesses  of  any  kind  are 
hardly  to  be  esteemed  pleasures,  much  less  natural  pleasures. 

It  is  evident  that  a  desire  terminated  in  money  is  fantastical; 
so  is  the  desire  of  outward  distinctions,  which  bring  no  delight 
of  sense,  nor  recommend  us  as  useful  to  mankind;  and  the  de¬ 
sire  of  things  merely  because  they  are  new  or  foreign.  Men 
who  are  indisposed  to  a  due  exertion  of  their  higher  parts  are 
driven  to  such  pursuits  as  these  from  the  restlessness  of  the 
mind,  and  the  sensitive  appetites  being  easily  satisfied.  It  is,  in 
some  sort,  owing  to  the  bounty  of  Providence,  that,  disdaining  a 
cheap  and  vulgar  happiness,  they  frame  to  themselves  imaginary 


442 


GEORGE  BERKELEY 


goods,  in  which  there  is  nothing  that  can  raise  desire,  but  the 
difficulty  of  obtaining  them.  Thus  men  become  the  contrivers  of 
their  own  misery,  as  a  punishment  on  themselves  for  departing 
from  the  measures  of  nature.  Having  by  an  habitual  reflection 
on  these  truths  made  them  familiar,  the  effect  is,  that  I,  among 
a  number  of  persons  who  have  debauched  their  natural  taste,  see 
things  in  a  peculiar  light,  which  I  have  arrived  at,  not  by  any 
uncommon  force  of  genius,  or  acquired  knowledge,  but  only  by 
unlearning  the  false  notions  instilled  by  custom  and  education. 

The  various  objects  that  compose  the  world  were  by  nature 
formed  to  delight  our  senses,  and  as  it  is  this  alone  that  makes 
them  desirable  to  an  uncorrupted  taste,  a  man  may  be  said  nat¬ 
urally  to  possess  them,  when  he  possesseth  those  enjoyments 
which  they  are  fitted  by  nature  to  yield.  Hence  it  is  usual  with 
me  to  consider  myself  as  having  a  natural  property  in  every  ob¬ 
ject  that  administers  pleasure  to  me.  When  I  am  in  the  coun¬ 
try,  all  the  fine  seats  near  the  place  of  my  residence,  and  to 
which  I  have  access,  I  regard  as  mine.  The  same  I  think  of 
the  groves  and  fields  where  I  walk,  and  muse  on  the  folly  of  the 
civil  landlord  in  London,  who  has  the  fantastical  pleasure  of 
draining  dry  rent  into  his  coffers,  but  is  a  stranger  to  fresh  air 
and  rural  enjoyments.  By  these  principles  I  am  possessed  of 
half  a  dozen  of  the  finest  seats  in  England,  which  in  the  eye  of 
the  law  belong  to  certain  of  my  acquaintance,  who  being  men 
of  business  choose  to  live  near  the  court. 

In  some  great  families,  where  I  choose  to  pass  my  time,  a 
stranger  would  be  apt  to  rank  me  with  the  other  domestics;  but 
in  my  own  thoughts  and  natural  judgment  I  am  master  of  the 
house,  and  he  who  goes  by  that  name  is  my  steward,  who  eases 
me  of  the  care  of  providing  for  myself  the  conveniences  and 
pleasures  of  life. 

When  I  walk  the  streets,  I  use  the  foregoing  natural  maxim 
{viz. ,  That  he  is  the  true  possessor  of  a  thing  who  enjoys  it,  and 
not  he  that  owns  it  without  the  enjoyment  of  it),  to  convince 
myself  that  I  .have  a  property  in  the  gay  part  of  all  the  gilt 
chariots  that  I  Jlieet,  which  I  regard  as  amusements  designed  to 
delight  my  eyes,  and  the  imagination  of  those  kind  people  who 
sit  in  them  gaily  attired  only  to  please  me.  I  have  a  real,  and 
they  only  an  imaginary  pleasure,  from  their  exterior  embellish¬ 
ments.  Upon  the  same  principle,  I  have  discovered  that  I  am 
the  natural  proprietor  of  all  the  diamond  necklaces,  the  crosses. 


GEORGE  BERKELEY 


443 


stars,  urocades,  and  embroidered  clothes,  which  I  see  at  a  play 
or  birthnight,  as  giving  more  natural  delight  to  the  spectator 
than  to  those  that  wear  them.  And  I  look  on  the  beaux  and 
ladies  as  so  many  paroquets  in  an  aviary,  or  tulips  in  a  garden, 
designed  purely  for  my  diversion.  A  gallery  of  pictures,  a  cab¬ 
inet,  or  library,  that  I  have  free  access  to,  I  think  my  own.  In 
a  word,  all  that  I  desire  is  the  use  of  things,  let  who  will  have 
the  keeping  of  them.  By  which  maxim  I  am  grown  one  of  the 
richest  men  in  Great  Britain;  with  this  difference,  that  I  am  not 
a  prey  to  my  own  cares,  or  the  envy  of  others. 

The  same  principles  I  find  of  great  use  in  my  private  econ¬ 
omy.  As  I  cannot  go  to  the  price  of  history  painting,  I  have 
purchased  at  easy  rates  several  beautifully  designed  pieces  of 
landscape  and  perspective,  which  are  much  more  pleasing  to  a 
natural  taste  than  unknown  faces  or  Dutch  gambols,  though 
done  by  the  best  masters;  my  couches,  beds,  and  window  curtains 
are  of  Irish  stuff,  which  those  of  that  nation  work  very  fine,  and 
with  a  delightful  mixture  of  colors.  There  is  not  a  piece  of 
china  in  my  house;  but  I  have  glasses  of  all  sorts,  and  some 
tinged  with  the  finest  colors,  which  are  not  the  less  pleasing,  be¬ 
cause  they  are  domestic,  and  cheaper  than  foreign  toys.  Every¬ 
thing  is  neat,  entire,  and  clean,  and  fitted  to  the  taste  of  one 
who  had  rather  be  happy  than  be  thought  rich. 

Every  day,  numberless  innocent  and  natural  gratifications  oc¬ 
cur  to  me,  while  I  behold  my  fellow-creatures  laboring  in  a  toil¬ 
some  and  absurd  pursuit  of  trifles:  one  that  he  may  be  called  by 
a  particular  appellation;  another,  that  he  may  wear  a  particular 
ornament,  which  I  regard  as  a  bit  of  riband  that  has  an  agree¬ 
able  effect  on  my  sight,  but  is  so  far  from  supplying  the  place 
of  merit  where  it  is  not,  that  it  serves  only  to  make  the  want  of 
it  more  conspicuous.  Fair  weather  is  the  joy  of  my  soul;  about 
noon  I  behold  a  blue  sky  with  rapture,  and  receive  great  con¬ 
solation  from  the  rosy  dashes  of  light  which  adorn  the  clouds  of 
the  morning  and  evening.  When  I  am  lost  among  green  trees, 
I  do  not  envy  a  great  man  with  a  great  crowd  at  his  levee. 
And  I  often  lay  aside  thoughts  of  going  to  an  opera,  that  I  may 
enjoy  the  silent  pleasure  of  walking  by  moonlight,  or  viewing 
the  stars  sparkle  in  their  azure  ground;  which  I  look  upon  as 
part  of  my  possessions,  not  without  a  secret  indignation  at  the 
tastelessness  of  mortal  men,  who  in  their  race  through  life  over¬ 
look  the  real  enjoyments  of  it. 


444 


GEORGE  BERKELEY 


But  the  pleasure  which  naturally  affects  a  human  mind  with 
the  most  lively  and  transporting  touches  I  take  to  be  the  sense 
that  we  act  in  the  eye  of  infinite  wisdom,  power,  and  goodness, 
that  will  crown  our  virtuous  endeavors  here  with  a  happiness 
hereafter,  large  as  our  desires,  and  lasting  as  our  immortal  souls. 
This  is  a  perpetual  spring  of  gladness  in  the  mind.  This  lessens 
our  calamities  and  doubles  our  joys.  Without  this  the  highest 
state  of  life  is  insipid,  and  with  it  the  lowest  is  a  paradise. 
What  unnatural  wretches  then  are  those  who  can  be  so  stupid  as 
to  imagine  a  merit,  in  endeavoring  to  rob  virtue  of  her  support, 
and  a  man  of  his  present  as  well  as  future  bliss  ?  But  as  I  have 
frequently  taken  occasion  to  animadvert  on  that  species  of  mor¬ 
tals,  so  I  propose  to  repeat  my  animadversions  on  them  till  I 
see  some  symptoms  of  amendment. 

Complete.  Number  49  of  the  Guardian. 


445 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


(1838-) 


ometimes  we  tire  of  being  subjugated  by  our  intellectual  su¬ 
periors  and  coerced  by  those  who  set  up  their  moral  excel¬ 
lencies  in  overwhelming  array  against  us.  As  the  schoolboy, 
when  the  woods  are  green  with  the  first  fresh  tints  of  June,  longs  to 
escape  from  the  majesty  of  his  teacher  to  the  company  of  vagrant 
boys  whom,  through  the  solid  walls  of  the  schoolroom  and  a  mile  of 
intervening  fields,  he  can  see  splashing  in  the  forbidden  stream,  so 
do  we  long  for  the  delight  of  freedom  in  the  company  of  minds  of 
our  likeness.  And  this  longing,  necessary  for  our  growth,  deserves 
indulgence  at  all  times  and  gratification  as  often  as  possible.  After 
we  have  been  disciplined  and  instructed,  taught  with  all  necessary 
birching  or  the  threat  of  it, — 

<(To  do  the  thing  we  never  like, 

Which  is  the  thing  we  ought, J> 

the  time  ought  to  come  in  the  natural  order  of  a  well-conducted  uni¬ 
verse  when  we  can  do  what  we  like.  That,  when  it  does  come,  is  of 
all  others  the  time  for  reading  Sir  Walter  Besant’s  essays,  novels, 
tales,  or  anything  else  he  has  written.  For  whatever  it  is,  wrhether 
essay,  tale,  or  novel,  we  shall  find  it  the  same  thing  in  the  end  —  to 
wit :  what  we  like !  If  fifteen  years  ago  it  happened  that,  without  wait¬ 
ing  for  the  suggestions  of  eminent  critics,  we  read  by  chance  either 
<(  The  Golden  Butterfly, ”  or  (<A11  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,®  there 
is  hardly  a  chance  but  that  it  alone  of  all  the  novels  we  read  that 
year  will  stand  the  severest  test  to  which  any  book  can  be  put  — 
that  of  whether  or  not  the  reader  really  liked  it.  For  what  a  man 
really  likes  he  assimilates  —  and  in  the  nature  of  language  and  of 
things  he  can  assimilate  nothing  else.  To  know  Besant  and  not  to 
like  him  is  impossible.  Hence,  when  the  whole  generation  of  unlik- 
able  people  is  forgotten,  Besant  will  be  remembered.  <(  From  the 
beginning,”  says  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  (<he  was  one  of  those  who 
come  with  a  tale  which  holdeth  children  from  play  and  old  men 
from  the  chimney  corner.”  If  we  ask  how,  we  do  not  have  far  to 
seek  for  the  answer.  It  is  because  he  likes  what  we  like.  His  mind 
holds  easily  all  we  have  tried  to  hold  in  vain.  Our  impressions, 
which  faded  out  before  we  could  fix  them,  he  fixed  and  held  in  trust 


446 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


for  ns,  that  he  might  give  them  back  in  due  time  as  thought  —  ours 
and  his  in  perfect  likeness. 

He  was  born  at  Portsmouth,  England,  August  14th,  1838.  After 
graduating  from  Christ  College,  Cambridge,  he  was  for  seven  years 
senior  professor  in  the  Royal  College  at  Mauritius.  When  he  re- 
turned  to  London,  it  was  with  a  determination  to  adopt  literature  as 
a  profession,  and  although  it  is  said  that  he  burned  his  first  novel 
because  a  publisher  rejected  it,  he  was  successful  from  the  begin¬ 
ning.  His  studies  of  French  poetry  and  his  essays  on  (<The  French 
Humorists ”  show  his  superiority  to  the  style  and  to  the  literary  tra¬ 
dition  of  the  English  Critical  Review.  They  are  unmistakably  litera¬ 
ture  in  their  own  right  and  not  mere  commentaries  on  it.  The 
partnership  as  a  novelist  formed  with  James  Rice  in  1871  resulted  in 
(<  Ready-Money  Mortiboy,”  ((The  Golden  Butterfly, ”  and  other  novels 
which  at  once  attained  international  popularity.  Rice  died  in  1882, 
and  in  the  same  year  appeared  the  first  of  Besant’s  independent 
novels,  (<A11  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,”  one  result  of  which  was 
the  building  of  the  People’s  Palace  in  East  London.  ' 

In  1884  he  was  elected  first  president  of  the  English  Society  of 
Authors,  and  in  1887  was  again  elected,  serving  until  1892.  In  1895 
he  was  knighted  and  in  1900  became  a  member  of  the  Advisory 
Council  of  the  World’s  Best  Essays, — of  which  in  his  own  right  and 
as  the  special  representative  of  England,  he  is  honorary  chairman. 
He  has  been  active  in  promoting  closer  relations  between  England 
and  America,  and  has  taken  special  pains  to  promote  the  convenience 
and  pleasure  of  Americans  visiting  London.  W.  V.  B. 


WITH  THE  WITS  OF  THE  ’THIRTIES 

The  ten  years  of  the  ’Thirties  are  a  period  concerning  whose 
literary  history  the  ordinary  reader  knows  next  to  nothing. 
Yet  a  good  deal  that  has  survived  for  fifty  years,  and  prom¬ 
ises  to  live  longer,  was  accomplished  in  that  period.  Dickens, 
for  example,  began  his  career  in  the  year  1837  with  his  <(  Sketches 
by  (  Boz y  *  and  the  (<  Pickwick  Papers.  ”  Lord  Lytton,  then  Mr. 
Lytton  Bulwer,  -had  already  before  that  year  published  five  novels, 
including  <(  Paul  Clifford  ”  and  <(  The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii.  ” 
Tennyson  had  already  issued  the  <(  Poems  by  Two  Brothers  *  and 
(< Poems,  Chiefly  Lyrical.”  Disraeli  had  written  (<The  Young  Duke,” 
<(  Vivian  Grey,”  and  (<Venetia.  ”  Browning  had  published  <(  Para¬ 
celsus  ®  and  <(  Strafford. Marryat  began  in  1834.  Carlyle  pub¬ 
lished  the  <(  Sartor  Resartus5>  in  1832.  But  one  must  not  estimate 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


447 


a  period  by  its  beginners,  All  these  writers  belong  to  the  fol¬ 
lowing  thirty  years  of  the  century.  If  we  look  for  those  who 
were  flourishing, —  that  is,  those  who  were  producing  their  best 
work, —  it  will  be  found  that  this  decade  was  singularly  poor. 
The  principal  name  is  that  of  Hood.  There  were  also  Hartley 
Coleridge,  Douglas  Jerrold,  Proctor,  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  Theo¬ 
dore  Hook,  G.  P.  R.  James,  Charles  Knight,  Sir  Henry  Taylor, 
Milman,  Ebenezer  Elliott,  Harriet  Martineau,  James  Montgomery, 
Talfourd,  Henry  Brougham,  Lady  Blessington,  Harrison  Ainsworth, 
and  some  others  of  lesser  note.  This  is  not  a  very  imposing  ar¬ 
ray.  On  the  other  hand,  nearly  all  the  great  writers  whom  we 
associate  with  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  century  were  living, 
-  though  their  best  work  was  done.  After  sixty,  I  take  it,  the 
hand  of  the  master  may  still  work  with  the  old  cunning,  but  his 
designs  will  be  no  longer  new  or  bold.  Wordsworth  wras  sixty  in 
1830,  and,  though  he  lived  for  twenty  years  longer,  and  published 
the  <(  Yarrow  Revisited,  ®  and,  I  think,  some  of  his  (<  Sonnets, w  he 
hardly  added  to  his  fame.  Southey  was  four  years  younger.  He 
published  his  <(  Doctor  ®  and  (<  Essays })  in  this  decade,  but  his 
best  work  was  done  already.  Scott  died  in  1832,  Coleridge  died 
in  1834;  Byron  was  already  dead;  James  Hogg  died  in  1835; 
Felicia  Hemans  in  the  same  year;  Tom  Moore  was  a  gay  young 
fellow  of  fifty  in  1830,  the  year  in  which  his  (<  Life  of  Lord 
Byron  ®  appeared.  He  did  very  little  afterwards.  Campbell  was 
two  years  older  than  Moore,  and  he,  too,  had  exhausted  himself. 
Rogers,  older  than  any  of  them,  had  entirely  concluded  his  poetic 
career.  It  is  wonderful  to  think  that  he  began  to  write  in  1783 
and  died  in  1855.  Beckford,  whose  (<  Vathek  )}  appeared  in  1786, 
was  living  until  1844.  Among  others  who  were  still  living  in 
1837  were  James  and  Horace  Smith,  Wilson  Croker,  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  Mrs.  Trollope,  Lucy  Aiken,  Miss  Opie  (who  lived  to  be 
eighty-five),  Jane  Porter  (prematurely  cut  off  at  seventy-four), 
and  Harriet  Lee  (whose  immortal  work,  the  <(  Errors  of  Inno¬ 
cence,  ®  appeared  in  17 86,  when  she  was  already  thirty),  lived  on 
till  1852,  when  she  was  ninety-six.  Bowles,  that  excellent  man, 
was  not  yet  seventy,  and  meant  to  live  for  twenty  years  longer. 
De  Quincey  was  fifty- two  in  1837;  Christopher  North  was  in  full 
vigor;  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  who  published  his  first  novel  in 
1810,  was  destined  to  produce  a  last,  equally  good,  in  i860;  Lan- 
dor,  born  in  1775,  was  not  to  die  until  1864;  Leigh  Hunt,  who 
in  1873  was  fifty-three  years  of  age,  belongs  to  the  time  of  Byron. 


448 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


John  Keble,  whose  <(  Christian  Year  ®  was  published  in  1827  was 
forty-four  in  1837;  <(L.  E.  L.w  died  in  1838.  In  America,  Wash¬ 
ington  Irving,  Emerson,  Channing,  Bryant,  Whittier,  and  Long¬ 
fellow,  make  a  good  group.  In  France,  Chateaubriand,  Lamartine, 
Victor  Hugo,  Beranger,  Alfred  de  Musset,  Scribe,  and  Dumas 
were  all  writing,  a  group  much  stronger  than  our  English  team. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand,  at  first,  that  between  the  time  of 
Scott,  Wordsworth,  Byron,  and  Keats,  and  that  of  Dickens,  Thack¬ 
eray,  Marryat,  Lever,  Tennyson,  Browning,  and  Carlyle,  there  ex¬ 
isted  this  generation  of  wits,  most  of  them  almost  forgotten. 
Those,  however,  who  consider  the  men  and  women  of  the  Thir¬ 
ties  have  to  deal  for  the  most  part  with  a  literature  that  is 
third  rate.  This  kind  becomes  dreadfully  flat  and  stale  when 
it  has  been  out  for  fifty  years;  the  dullest,  flattest,  dreariest  read¬ 
ing  that  can  be  found  on  the  shelves  is  the  sprightly  novel  of 
society,  written  in  the  Thirties. 

A  blight  had  fallen  upon  novels  and  their  writers.  The  enor¬ 
mous  success  that  Scott  had  achieved  tempted  hundreds  to  follow 
in  his  path,  if  that  were  possible.  It  was  not  possible;  but  this 
they  could  not  know,  because  nothing  seems  so  easy  to  write  as  a 
novel,  and  no  man  of  those  destined  to  fail  can  understand  in 
what  respects  his  own  work  falls  short  of  Scott’s.  That  is  the  chief 
reason  why  he  fails.  Scott’s  success,  however,  produced  another 
effect.  It  greatly  enlarged  the  number  of  novel  readers,  and 
caused  them  to  buy  up  eagerly  anything  new,  in  the  hope  of 
finding  another  Scott.  Thus,  about  the  year  1826,  there  were 
produced  as  many  as  250  three-  and  four- volume  novels  a  year, 
—  that  is  to  say,  about  as  many  as  were  published  in  1886,  when 
the  area  of  readers  has  been  multiplied  by  ten.  We  are  also 
told  that  nearly  all  these  novels  could  command  a  sale  of  750  to 
1,000  each,  while  anything  above  the  average  would  have  a  sale 
of  1,500  to  2,000.  The  usual  price  given  for  these  novels  was, 
we  are  also  told,  from  ^200  to  ^300.  In  that  case  the  publishers 
must  have  had  a  happy  and  prosperous  time,  netting  splendid 
hauls.  But  I  think  that  we  must  take  these  figures  with  consid¬ 
erable  deductions.  There  were  as  yet  no  circulating  libraries  of 
any  importance;  their  place  was  supplied  by  book  clubs,  to  which 
the  publishers  chiefly  looked  for  the  purchase  of  their  books.  But 
one  cannot  believe  that  the  book  clubs  would  take  copies  of  all  the 
rubbish  that  came  out.  Some  of  these  novels  I  have  read;  some 
of  them  actually  stand  on  my  shelves;  and  I  declare  that  any- 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


449 


thing  more  dreary  and  unprofitable  it  is  difficult  to  imagine.  At 
last  there  was  a  revolt;  the  public  would  stand  this  kind  of  stuff 
no  longer.  Down  dropped  the  circulation  of  the  novels.  Instead 
of  2,000  copies  subscribed,  the  dismayed  publishers  read  50,  and 
the  whole  host  of  novelists  vanished  like  a  swarm  of  midges. 
At  the  same  time  poetry  went  down  too.  The  drop  in  poetry 
was  even  more  terrible  than  that  of  novels.  Suddenly,  and  with¬ 
out  any  warning,  the  people  of  Great  Britain  left  off  reading 
poetry.  To  be  sure,  they  had  been  flooded  with  a  prodigious 
quantity  of  trash.  One  anonymous  <{  popular  poet/*  whose  name 
will  never  now  be  recovered,  received  ^100  for  his  last  poem 
from  a  publisher  who  thought,  no  doubt,  that  the  <(  boom was 
going  to  last.  Of  this  popular  poet’s  work  he  sold  exactly  fifty 
copies.  Another,  a  (<  humorous  M  bard,  who  also  received  a  large 
sum  for  his  immortal  poem,  showed  in  the  unhappy  publisher’s 
books  no  more  than  eighteen  copies  sold.  This  was  too  ridicu¬ 
lous,  and  from  that  day  to  this  the  trade  side  of  poetry  has 
remained  under  a  cloud.  That  of  novelist  has,  fortunately  for 
some,  been  redeemed  from  contempt  by  the  enormous  success  of 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  George  Eliot,  and  by  the  solid,  though  sub¬ 
stantial,  success  of  the  lesser  lights.  Poets  have  now  to  pay  for 
the  publication  of  their  own  works,  but  novelists  —  some  of  them 
- — command  a  price;  those,  namely,  who  do  not  have  to  pay  for 
the  production  of  their  works. 

From  «  Fifty  Years  Ago.0  Harper  Brothers. 


MONTAIGNE’S  METHOD  AS  AN  ESSAYIST 


Montaigne  took  the  man  of  whom  he  knew  most,  himself,  the 
creature  which  was  to  him  the  most  interesting  object  in 
the  world;  and  then  began  to  group  around  this  central 
figure  all  thoughts,  influences,  events,  accidents,  and  habits  which 
had  accumulated  during  his  lifetime.  The  man  stands  before  us 
forever  contemplating  an  immense  pile  of  these  things,  his  own. 
Suppose  you  had  spread  out  before  you  all  the  things  you  had 
bought,  possessed,  or  imagined,  in  the  course  of  your  life;  sup¬ 
pose  there  were  the  toys  and  games  of  childhood,  the  follies  of 
youth,  the  disappointments,  the  projects,  the  successes  of  a  long 
career,  would  not  the  mere  description  of  these  things  make  an 
interesting  volume  ?  But  Montaigne  does  more.  He  gives  us 


45° 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


not  only  these  things,  but  the  things  he  has  learned  from  them. 
Montaigne’s  <(  Essays ”  owe  their  greatest  charm  to  the  fact  that 
they  reveal  not  only  the  secrets  of  a  soul,  but  of  a  soul  not 
much  raised  above  the  commonplace,  and  like  our  own.  Such 
influences  as  acted  upon  his  spirit  act  upon  ours.  He  goes 
about  the  world  among  his  fellows,  plays  the  fool  among  the 
boys,  and  is  sober  when  he  grows  older;  has  posts  of  honor  and 
dignity;  associates  sometimes  with  great  people;  is  himself  a 
gentleman  of  some  learning;  is  a  married  man,  and  a  pere  de 
famille.  There  is  nothing  which  is  not  entirely  commonplace, 
ordinary,  and  of  mere  routine  in  his  life;  everything  which 
should  make  him  entirely  fitted  for  the  task  he  undertook.  The 
Pleiad  poets,  for  instance,  with  their  scholarship,  seclusion,  and 
pedantry  —  if  these  should  attempt  to  do  what  Montaigne  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  doing,  what  sort  of  man  would  they  produce  ?  Con¬ 
sider  what  ordinary  people  talk  about;  listen  to  them  at  their 
tables,  in  the  streets,  in  railway  carriages;  as  they  talk,  Mon¬ 
taigne’s  people  talked.  It  is  not  of  politics,  nor  is  it  of  litera¬ 
ture,  nor  is  it  of  art.  They  talk  of  their  own  habits  first,  their 
little  dodges  to  keep  off  sickness  and  defer  death;  then,  their 
likings  and  dislikings;  then,  any  amusements  that  are  going  on; 
then,  money-making;  then,  the  topic  of  the  day,  on  which  they 
have  a  decided  opinion.  That  is  how  Montaigne  talked,  that  is 
how  he  wrote.  Nothing  clearer  than  the  portraits  of  himself, 
got  from  his  <(  Essays  ” ;  nothing  less  likely  to  excite  enthusiasm. 

He  used  to  write  in  a  large  circular  room,  with  an  adjoining 
square  cabinet.  The  rafters  are  bare,  and  covered  with  inscrip¬ 
tions,  cut  by  the  direction  of  Montaigne,  such  as  the  following:  — 

<(  Things  do  not  torment  a  man  so  much  as  the  opinion  he  has  of 
things. ” 

(<  Every  argument  has  its  contrary.” 

(<Wind  swells  bladders;  opinion  swells  men.® 

<(Mud  and  ashes,  what  have  you  to  be  proud  of?” 

<(I  do  not  understand,  I  pause,  I  examine.” 

The  sides  of  the  square  cabinet  were  covered  with  fresco 
paintings,  <(  Mars  and  Venus  Surprised  by  Vulcan,”  and  such  re¬ 
freshing  subjects,  to  which  the  philosopher  might  turn  when 
wearied  by  working  at  his  <( certain  verses  of  Virgil.”  The  cir¬ 
cular  room,  in  which  was  his  library  of  a  thousand  volumes,  no 
contemptible  collection  for  the  time,  is  sixteen  paces  in  diameter. 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


451 

Here  for  twenty  years,  save  when  he  is  running  up  to  Paris  <(on 
business, ®  sits  a  little  squat-figured,  undignified  man;  he  is  past 
forty  now,  and  no  longer  fond  of  violent  exercises;  he  dresses  in 
plain  white  or  black;  he  is  quick  and  hasty-tempered,  in  so  much 
that  his  servants  get  out  of  his  sight  when  he  begins  to  call  them 
calves  }) ;  he  is  easily  irritated  by  little  things,  such  as  the  fall  of 
a  tile,  or  the  breaking  of  a  thing;  he  sits  down  to  dinner  late, 
because  he  does  not  like  to  see  a  crowd  of  dishes  on  the  table; 
he  is  fond  of  wine,  but  is  not  intemperate;  he  is  awkward,  and 
unable  to  do  things  which  other  men  do;  cannot  dance  or  sing; 
cannot  mend  a  pen,  saddle  a  horse,  or  carve  meat,  and  his  awk¬ 
wardness  makes  him  uncomfortable.  He  has  all  the  virtues,  he 
says,  except  two  or  three;  never  makes  enemies,  never  does  any 
man  injury;  makes  it  his  rule  to  keep  things  comfortable  about 
him;  is  extremely  kind-hearted,  and  eminently  selfish.  He  is 
lacking  in  the  domestic  faculty;  cares  little  about  his  wife,  and 
does  not  pretend  to  care  at  all  for  babies;  and  he  is  always  in¬ 
terfering  with  servants,  so  that  they  hate  him.  As  regards  his 
reading,  it  is  without  method,  desultory;  he  takes  up  his  books 
one  after  the  other,  and  browses  among  them,  reading  Latin  his¬ 
tories  for  chief  pleasure.  He  evidently  has  no  real  love  for  poe¬ 
try  or  power  of  criticism,  because  we  find  him  turning  from  Ovid 
and  Virgil  and  admiring  the  miserable  centos  in  vogue  at  the 
time. 

Do  you  want  to  know  more  about  him  ?  Read  the  <(  Essays. }> 
There  you  will  find  every  page  with  some  allusion  to  himself. 
You  will  be  pleased  to  learn  that  he  prefers  white  wine  to  red; 
that  he  loves  to  rest  with  his  legs  raised;  that  he  likes  scratching 
his  ear,  with  other  interesting  details. 

It  is  all,  in  fact,  as  I  said  before,  about  himself.  There  is  the 
man,  with  his  appearance,  his  manners,  his  habits,  and  his  bag¬ 
gage  of  thoughts.  And  because  it  is  a  real  man,  ten  times  as 
real  as  Rousseau’s  pretended  self,  therefore  it  is  an  immortal 
book.  The  main  interests  of  life  lie  in  the  commonplace;  the 
great  thoughts  of  a  genius  are  too  much  for  most  of  us;  we  like 
the  easy  wanderings  of  a  mind  of  our  own  level;  we  follow  the 
speculations  of  one  who  is  not  far  removed  from  ourselves  with 
pleasure,  if  not  with  profit.  Like  him,  we  doubt;  like  him,  we 
know  nothing;  like  him,  we  have  no  disposition  to  be  martyrs; 
like  him,  we  long  after  something  that  we  have  not  got,  some. 


45  2 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


thing  that  we  cannot  understand;  like  him,  we  feel  that  it  is  an 
extremely  disagreeable  necessity,  this  of  death. 

Like  ourselves,  but  yet  superior.  His  mind  differing  in  de¬ 
gree  from  ours,  not  in  kind;  larger,  broader,  keener.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  that  truth  should  be  better  studied  in  a  successive  series 
of  observations,  although  he  is  never  able  to  show  the  relations 
of  one  to  another.  They  have,  indeed,  no  natural  relations  to 
him.  He  feels  himself  in  a  labyrinth  full  of  uncertainty,  doubt, 
and  perplexity,  wanders  aimlessly  along,  turning  from  path  to 
path,  plucking  flowers  as  he  goes,  and  careless  about  finding  any 
clew.  His  mottoes,  cut  upon  the  rafters  of  his  library,  show  his 
mind,  in  which  uncertainty  is  the  leading  characteristic.  An 
uncertainty  which  chimed  in  with  the  miserable  condition  of 
affairs  in  the  world;  when  burnings,  tortures,  civil  wars,  horrid 
plagues,  were  the  commonest  accidents  of  life,  and  man’s  intel¬ 
lect,  man’s  reason,  man’s  kindly  nature,  seemed  powerless  to 
arrest  the  dreadful  miseries  wrought  by  king  and  priest.  Re¬ 
ligion  ?  It  is  a  need.  Truth  ?  Who  knows  what  it  is  ?  Govern¬ 
ment  ?  It  means  protection.  Life  ?  It  means  disappointment, 
disease,  fear  of  death.  Science  ?  A  bundle  of  contradictions. 
Love  ?  It  means  falsehood  and  infidelity.  And  then  men  quarrel 
as  to  whether  Montaigne  was  a  Christian.  It  is  exasperating  to 
find  the  question  so  much  as  raised.  What  were  these  two 
banners  under  which  men  were  ranged,  of  Huguenot  and  Cath¬ 
olic  ?  Some  poor  artisans,  like  Bishop  Briconnet’s  weavers  of 
Meaux,  might  greatly  dare  for  liberty’s  sake;  to  the  men  of  cul¬ 
ture  the  rival  parties  were  but  two  political  sides.  Montaigne 
belonged  to  that  side  which  represented,  in  his  eyes,  order  and 
law;  he  was,  therefore,  a  Catholic.  Like  all  the  men  of  his  own 
time,  he  had  a  creed,  a  kind  of  pill,  to  be  taken  when  it  might 
be  wanted.  The  time  had  gone  by  when  such  men  as  Rabelais 
and  Dolet  hoped  to  bring  the  world  to  Deism;  the  scholars  had 
accepted  the  inevitable  position  of  orthodoxy,  and,  while  giving 
all  their  activity  and  interest  to  heathenism,  were  zealous  sup¬ 
porters  of  the  lifeless  creed.  Montaigne  a  Christian  ?  Compare 
his  morality  with  that  of  the  Gospels;  read  how  the  dread  of 
death  is  breathed  in  every  page  of  his  book;  remember  how  he 
says  that  to  pretend  to  know,  to  understand  aught  beyond  the 
phenomenal,  is  to  make  the  handful  greater  than  the  hand  can 
hold;  the  armful  larger  than  the  arms  can  embrace;  the  stride 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


453 


wider  than  the  legs  can  stretch  — <(  a  man  can  but  see  with  his 
eyes  and  hold  with  his  grasp.  )}  Try  then  to  remember  that  we 
are  not  in  the  nineteenth  century,  but  in  the  sixteenth;  that 
Montaigne  died  in  the  act  of  adoration,  and  cease  to  ask  whether 
the  man  was  a  Christian.  Christian  ?  There  was  no  better  Chris¬ 
tian  than  Montaigne  in  all  his  century. 

From  <(The  French  Humorists. Roberts 
Brothers,  Boston. 


454 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 

(1850-) 

ugustine  Birrell’s  <(  Obiter  Dicta, »  published  in  1884,  decided 
conclusively  in  the  mind  of  England  and  America  that,  no 
matter  what  he  may  do  at  the  bar  or  in  parliament,  he 
belongs  not  to  law  or  to  public  life,  but  to  literature.  The  book  was 
the  work  of  a  pupil  of  Charles  Lamb  who  believed  with  his  master 
that  the  surest  way  to  serve  is  to  begin  by  pleasing.  The  superiority 
of  Carlyle  and  the  intensity  of  Ruskin  had  made  giving  pleasure 
seem  a  matter  of  minor  importance  or  of  no  importance  at  all.  These 
great  men,  each  of  whom  was  in  his  own  way  as  certainly  a  prophet 
as  Isaiah  or  Ezekiel,  set  what,  for  men  of  less  intellect  and  no  in¬ 
spiration,  was  a  bad  example.  As  a  result  of  stereotyped  imitation 
of  it,  the  world  became  weary  of  the  artificial  fervor  of  the  mere 
Mahdis  of  inspiration.  Being  so,  it  was  ready  to  receive  Birrell  and 
give  him  a  hearing  when,  instead  of  crying  aloud  in  the  street  of 
Nineveh,  he  renounced  sackcloth  and  ashes  for  himself  and  his  read¬ 
ers  by  quoting  Dr.  John  Brown’s  story  of  the  Scotch  dog  whose 
master  said  in  explaining  his  gravity:  <(  Oh,  sir,  life  is  full  of  sairious- 
ness  to  him  —  he  can  just  never  get  eneugh  o’  fechtin.>J) 

The  world  cannot  escape  its  fighters,  and  though  it  must  needs  be 
that  the  offense  of  fechtin  comes,  the  woe  pronounced  on  those  by 
whom  it  cometh,  is  sairiousness, —  perhaps  due  to  the  movement  of  the 
soul,  but  frequently  (<  connoting  indigestion,  physical  and  intellectual.  ® 
Birrell  would  have  none  of  such  seriousness.  He  thought  it  worth 
while  to  please,  and  he  has  succeeded  so  well  that  in  the  sixteen 
years  since  he  began  writing,  he  has  won  a  well-assured  place  among 
those  whose  essays  are  certain  to  survive  and  become  classics. 

He  was  born  January  19th,  1850,  at  Wavertree,  near  Liverpool,  and 
educated  at  Cambridge,  graduating  with  honors  in  law  and  history  in 
1872.  He  was  called  to  the  bar  in  1875,  and  in  1889  returned  to  Par¬ 
liament  from  West  Fife.  He  has  done  noteworthy  work  as  a  writer 
of  biography  and  on  legal  subjects,  but  his  special  field  is  essay  writing. 


r<. 

h. 

4 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


455 


ON  DOCTOR  BROWN’S  DOG-STORY 


Dr.  John  Brown’s  pleasant  story  has  become  well  known,  of 
the  countryman  who,  being  asked  to  account  for  the  grav¬ 
ity  of  his  dog,  replied:  <(  Oh,  sir!  life  is  full  of  sairiousness 
to  him  —  he  can  just  never  get  eneugh  o’  fechtin’.”  Something 
of  the  spirit  of  this  saddened  dog  seems  lately  to  have  entered 
into  the  very  people  who  ought  to  be  freest  from  it  —  our  men 
of  letters.  They  are  all  very  serious  and  very  quarrelsome.  To 
some  of  them  it  is  dangerous  even  to  allude.  Many  are  wedded 
to  a  theory  or  period,  and  are  the  most  uxorious  of  husbands  — 
ever  ready  to  resent  an  affront  to  their  lady.  This  devotion 
makes  them  very  grave,  and  possibly  very  happy  after  a  pedantic 
fashion.  One  remembers  what  Hazlitt,  who  was  neither  happy 
nor  pedantic,  has  said  about  pedantry :  — 


<(  The  power  of  attaching  an  interest  to  the  most  trifling  or  pain¬ 
ful  pursuits  is  one  of  the  greatest  happinesses  of  our  nature.  The 
common  soldier  mounts  the  breach  with  joy,  the  miser  deliberately 
starves  himself  to  death,  the  mathematician  sets  about  extracting  the 
cube  root  with  a  feeling  of  enthusiasm,  and  the  lawyer  sheds  tears  of 
delight  over  Coke  upon  Lyttleton.  He  who  is  not  in  some  measure 
a  pedant,  though  he  may  be  a  wise,  cannot  be  a  very  happy  man.” 


Possibly  not;  but  then  we  are  surely  not  content  that  our 
authors  should  be  pedants  in  order  that  they  may  be  happy  and 
devoted.  As  one  of  the  great  class  for  whose  sole  use  and  be¬ 
half  literature  exists, —  the  class  of  readers, —  I  protest  that  it  is 
to  me  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  an  author  is  happy  or 
not.  I  want  him  to  make  me  happy.  That  is  his  office.  Let 
him  discharge  it. 

I  recognize  in  this  connection  the  corresponding  truth  of  what 
Sydney  Smith  makes  his  Peter  Plymley  say  about  the  private 
virtues  of  Mr.  Perceval,  the  Prime  Minister  :  — 

<(YTou  spend  a  great  deal  of  ink  about  the  character  of  the  present 
Prime  Minister.  Grant  all  that  you  write  —  I  say,  I  fear  that  he  will 
ruin  Ireland,  and  pursue  a  line  of  policy  destructive  to  the  true  inter¬ 
ests  of  his  country;  and  then  you  tell  me  that  he  is  faithful  to  Mrs. 
Perceval,  and  kind  to  Master  Perceval,  I  should  prefer  that  he 
whipped  his  boys  and  saved  his  country.” 


456 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


We  should  never  confuse  functions  or  apply  wrong  tests.  What 
can  books  do  for  us?  Dr.  Johnson,  the  least  pedantic  of  men, 
put  the  whole  matter  into  a  nutshell  (a  cocoanut  shell,  if  you 
will  —  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  seek  to  compress  the  great 
Doctor  within  any  narrower  limits  than  my  metaphor  requires!), 
when  he  wrote  that  a  book  should  teach  us  either  to  enjoy  life 
or  endure  it.  <(  Give  us  enjoyment ! ”  <(  Teach  us  endurance !  * 
Hearken  to  the  ceaseless  demand  and  the  perpetual  prayer  of  an 
ever-unsatisfied  and  always- suffering  humanity! 

How  is  a  book  to  answer  the  ceaseless  demand  ? 

Self-forgetfulness  is  of  the  essence  of  enjoyment,  and  the  au¬ 
thor  who  would  confer  pleasure  must  possess  the  art,  or  know 
the  trick,  of  destroying  for  the  time  the  reader’s  own  personality. 
Undoubtedly  the  easiest  way  of  doing  this  is  by  the  creation  of 
a  host  of  rival  personalities  —  hence  the  number  and  popularity 
of  novels.  Whenever  a  novelist  fails,  his  book  is  said  to  flag; 
that  is,  the  reader  suddenly  (as  in  skating)  comes  bump  down 
upon  his  own  personality,  and  curses  the  unskillful  author.  No 
lack  of  characters  and  continual  motion  is  the  easiest  recipe  for 
a  novel,  which,  like  a  beggar,  should  always  be  kept  (< moving  on.” 
Nobody  knows  this  better  than  Fielding,  whose  novels,  like  most 
good  ones,  are  full  of  inns. 

When  those  who  are  addicted  to  what  is  called  <(  improving 
reading  ”  inquire  of  you  petulantly  why  you  cannot  find  change 
of  company  and  scene  in  books  of  travel,  you  should  answer  cau¬ 
tiously  that  when  books  of  travel  are  full  of  inns,  atmosphere, 
and  motion,  they  are  as  good  as  any  novel;  nor  is  there  any 
reason,  in  the  nature  of  things,  why  they  should  not  always  be  so, 
though  experience  proves  the  contrary. 

The  truth  or  falsehood  of  a  book  is  immaterial.  George  Bor- 
row’s  <(  Bible  in  Spain  »  is,  I  suppose,  true;  though  now  that  I  come 
to  think  of  it,  in  what  is  to  me  a  new  light,  one  remembers  that 
it  contains  some  odd  things.  But  was  not  Borrow  the  accredited 
agent  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  ?  Did  he  not 
travel  (and  he  had  a  free  hand)  at  their  charges  ?  Was  he  not 
befriended  by  our  minister  at  Madrid,  Mr.  Villiers,  subsequently 
Earl  of  Clarendon  in  the  peerage  of  England  ?  It  must  be  true ; 
and  yet  at  this  moment  I  would  as  lief  read  a  chapter  of  the 
*  Bible  in  Spain  *  as  I  would  (<  Gil  Bias  ” ;  nay,  I  positively  would 
give  the  preference  to  Senor  Giorgio. 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


45  / 


Nobody  can  sit  down  to  read  Borrow’s  books  without  as  com¬ 
pletely  forgetting  himself  as  if  he  were  a  boy  in  the  forest  with 
Gurth  and  Wamba. 

Borrow  is  provoking  and  has  his  full  share  of  faults,  and, 
though  the  owner  of  a  style,  is  capable  of  excruciating  offenses. 
His  habitual  use  of  the  odious  word  <(  individual as  a  noun 
substantive  (seven  times  in  three  pages  of  <(  The  Romany  Rye  >}) 
elicits  the  frequent  groan,  and  he  is  certainly  once  guilty  of  call¬ 
ing  fish  the  (<  finny  tribe. M  He  believed  himself  to  be  animated 
by  an  intense  hatred  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  disfigures  man}^ 
of  his  pages  by  Lawrence- Boy  thorn-like  tirades  against  that  in¬ 
stitution;  but  no  Catholic  of  sense  need  on  this  account  deny  him¬ 
self  the  pleasure  of  reading  Borrow,  whose  one  dominating  passion 
was  camaradarie ,  and  who  hob-a-nobbed  in  the  friendliest  spirit 
with  priest  and  gipsy  in  a  fashion  as  far  beyond  praise  as  if  is 
beyond  description  by  any  pen  other  than  his  own.  Hail  to  thee, 
George  Borrow!  Cervantes  himself,  and  Gil  Bias,  do  not  more 
effectually  carry  their  readers  into  the  land  of  the  Cid  than  does 
this  miraculous  agent  of  the  Bible  Society,  by  favor  of  whose 
pleasantness  we  can,  any  hour  of  the  week,  enter  Villafranca  by 
night,  or  ride  into  Galicia  on  an  Andalusian  stallion  (which  proved 
to  be  a  foolish  thing  to  do),  without  costing  anybody  a  peseta , 
and  at  no  risk  whatever  to  our  necks  —  be  they  long  or  short. 

Cooks,  warriors,  and  authors  must  be  judged  by  the  effects 
they  produce;  toothsome  dishes,  glorious  victories,  pleasant  books 
—  these  are  our  demands.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with  ingredi¬ 
ents,  tactics,  or  methods.  We  have  no  desire  to  be  admitted  into 
the  kitchen,  the  council,  or  the  study.  The  cook  may  clean  her 
saucepans  how  she  pleases  —  the  warrior  place  his  men  as  he 
likes  —  the  author  handle  his  material  or  weave  his  plot  as  best 
he  can  —  when  the  dish  is  served  we  only  ask,  Is  it  good?  when 
the  battle  has  been  fought,  Who  won  ?  when  the  book  comes  out, 
Does  it  read  ? 

Authors  ought  not  to  be  above  being  reminded  that  it  is  their 
first  duty  to  write  agreeably  —  some  very  disagreeable  men  have 
succeeded  in  doing  so,  and  there  is  therefore  no  need  for  any  one 
to  despair.  Every  author,  be  he  grave  or  gay,  should  try  to  make 
his  book  as  ingratiating  as  possible.  Reading  is  not  a  duty,  and 
has  consequently  no  business  to  be  made  disagreeable.  Nobody 
is  under  any  obligation  to  read  any  other  man’s  book. 


458 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


Literature  exists  to  please, —  to  lighten  the  burden  of  men’s 
lives;  to  make  them  for  a  short  while  forget  their  sorrows  and 
their  sins,  their  silenced  hearths,  their  disappointed  hopes,  their 
grim  futures  —  and  those  men  of  letters  are  the  best  loved  who 
have  best  performed  literature’s  truest  office.  Their  name  is 
happily  legion,  and  I  will  conclude  these  disjointed  remarks  by 
quoting  from  one  of  them,  as  honest  a  parson  as  ever  took  tithe 
or  voted  for  the  Tory  candidate,  the  Rev.  George  Crabbe.  Hear 
him  in  ((  The  Frank  Courtship  J> :  — 

<(  < I  must  be  loved  > ;  said  Sybil ;  ( I  must  see 
The  man  in  terrors,  who  aspires  to  me: 

At  my  forbidding  frown  his  heart  must  ache, 

His  tongue  must  falter,  and  his  frame  must  shake; 

And  if  I  grant  him  at  my  feet  to  kneel, 

What  trembling  fearful  pleasure  must  he  feel! 

Nay,  such  the  rapture  that  my  smiles  inspire 
That  reason’s  self  must  for  a  time  retired 
(Alas!  for  good  Josiah,*  said  the  dame, 

( These  wicked  thoughts  would  fill  his  soul  with  shame ; 

He  kneel  and  tremble  at  a  thing  of  dust! 

He  cannot,  child  > :  —  the  child  replied,  (He  must.>x> 

Were  an  office  to  be  opened  for  the  insurance  of  literary 
reputations,  no  critic  at  all  likely  to  be  in  the  society’s  service 
would  refuse  the  life  of  a  poet  who  could  write  like  Crabbe. 
Cardinal  Newman,  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  Mr.  Swinburne,  are  not 
always  of  the  same  way  of  thinking,  but  all  three  hold  the  one 
true  faith  about  Crabbe. 

But  even  were  Crabbe  now  left  unread,  which  is  very  far 
•from  being  the  case,  his  would  be  an  enviable  fame  —  for  was 
he  not  one  of  the  favorite  poets  of  Walter  Scott,  and  whenever 
the  closing  scene  of  the  great  magician’s  life  is  read  in  the  pages 
of  Lockhart,  must  not  Crabbe’s  name  be  brought  upon  the  read¬ 
er’s  quivering  lip  ? 

To  soothe  the  sorrow  of  the  soothers  of  sorrow,  to  bring  tears 
to  the  eyes  and  smiles  to  the  cheeks  of  the  lords  of  human 
smiles  and  tears,  is  no  mean  ministry,  and  it  is  Crabbe’s. 

Complete.  From  <(  Obiter  Dicta. w 

jl. 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


459 


BOOK-BUYING 

The  most  distinguished  of  living  Englishmen,  who,  great  as  he 
is  in  many  directions,  is  perhaps  inherently  more  a  man  of 
letters  than  anything  else,  has  been  overheard  mournfully 
to  declare  that  there  were  more  booksellers’  shops  in  his  native 
town  sixty  years  ago,  when  he  was  a  boy  in  it,  than  are  to-day 
to  be  found  within  its  boundaries.  And  yet  the  place  <(  all  un¬ 
abashed  *  now  boasts  its  bookless  self  a  city! 

Mr.  Gladstone  was,  of  course,  referring  to  second-hand  book¬ 
shops.  Neither  he  nor  any  other  sensible  man  puts  himself  out 
about  new  books.  When  a  new  book  is  published,  read  an  old 
one,  was  the  advice  of  a  sound  though  surly  critic.  It  is  one  of 
the  boasts  of  letters  to  have  glorified  the  term  (<  second-hand, 
which  other  crafts  have  (<  soiled  to  all  ignoble  use.  ®  But  why  it 
has  been  able  to  do  this  is  obvious.  All  the  best  books  are  nec¬ 
essarily  second-hand.  The  writers  of  to-day  need  not  grumble. 
Let  them  (t  bide  a  wee. })  If  their  books  are  worth  anything,  they 
too  one  day  will  be  second-hand.  If  their  books  are  not  worth 
anything,  there  are  ancient  trades  still  in  full  operation  amongst, 
us  —  the  pastry  cooks  and  the  trunk  makers  —  who  must  have 
paper. 

But  is  there  any  substance  in  the  plaint  that  nobody  now 
buys  books,  meaning  thereby  second-hand  books  ?  The  late  Mark 
Pattison,  who  had  sixteen  thousand  volumes,  and  whose  lightest 
word  has  therefore  weight,  once  stated  that  he  had  been  in¬ 
formed,  and  verily  believed,  that  there  were  men  of  his  own 
University  of  Oxford  who,  being  in  uncontrolled  possession  of 
annual  incomes  of  not  less  than  ^£500,  thought  they  were  doing 
the  thing  handsomely  if  they  expended  ^50  a  year  upon  their 
libraries.  But  we  are  not  bound  to  believe  this  unless  we  like. 
There  was  a  touch  of  morosity  about  the  late  Rector  of  Lincoln 
which  led  him  to  take  gloomy  views  of  men,  particularly  Oxford 
men. 

No  doubt  arguments  a  priori  may  readily  be  found  to  support 
the  contention  that  the  habit  of  book-buying  is  on  the  decline. 
I  confess  to  knowing  one  or  two  men,  not  Oxford  men  either, 
but  Cambridge  men  (and  the  passion  of  Cambridge  for  literature 
is  a  byword),  who,  on  the  plea  of  being  pressed  with  business, 
or  because  they  were  going  to  a  funeral,  have  passed  a  book- 


460 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


shop  in  a  strange  town  without  so  much  as  stepping  inside  <(  just 
to  see  whether  the  fellow  had  anything.  ®  But  painful  as  facts 
of  this  sort  necessarily  are,  any  damaging  inference  we  might 
feel  disposed  to  draw  from  them  is  dispelled  by  a  comparison  of 
price  lists.  Compare  a  bookseller’s  catalogue  of  1862  with  one  of 
the  present  year,  and  your  pessimism  is  washed  away  by  the 
tears  which  unrestrainedly  flow  as  you  see  what  good  fortune 
you  have  lost.  A  young  book-buyer  might  well  turn  out  upon 
Primrose  Hill  and  bemoan  his  youth,  after  comparing  old  cata¬ 
logues  with  new. 

Nothing  but  American  competition,  grumble  some  old  stagers. 

Well !  why  not  ?  This  new  battle  for  the  books  is  a  free  fight, 
not  a  private  one,  and  Columbia  has  <(  joined  in. y>  Lower  prices 
are  not  to  be  looked  for.  The  book-buyer  of  1900  will  be  glad 

to  buy  at  to-day’s  prices.  I  take  pleasure  in  thinking  he  will 

not  be  able  to  do  so.  Good  finds  grow  scarcer  and  scarcer. 

True  it  is  that  but  a  few  short  weeks  ago  I  picked  up  (such  is 

the  happy  phrase,  most  apt  to  describe  what  was  indeed  a  <(  street 
casualty }))  a  copy  of  the  original  edition  of  <(  Endymion  y>  (Keat’s 
poem  —  O  subscriber  to  Mudie’s  —  not  Lord  Beaconsfi eld’s  novel) 
for  the  easy  equivalent  of  half  a  crown  —  but  then  that  was  one 
of  my  lucky  days.  The  enormous  increase  of  booksellers’  cata¬ 
logues  and  their  wide  circulation  amongst  the  trade  has  already 
produced  a  hateful  uniformity  of  prices.  Go  where  you  will,  it  is 
all  the  same  to  the  odd  sixpence.  Time  was  when  you  could 
map  out  the  country  for  yourself  with  some  hopefulness  of  plun¬ 
der.  There  were  districts  where  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  were 
but  slenderly  protected.  A  raid  into  the  (<bonnie  North  Coun¬ 
tries  sent  you  home  again  cheered  with  chapbooks  and  weighted 
with  old  pamphlets  of  curious  interest;  whilst  the  west  of  Eng¬ 
land  seldom  failed  to  yield  a  crop  of  novels.  I  remember  get¬ 
ting  a  complete  set  of  the  Bronte  books  in  the  original  issues  at 
Torquay,  1  may  say,  for  nothing.  Those  days  are  over.  Your 
country  bookseller  is,  in  fact,  more  likely,  such  tales  does  he 
hear  of  London  auctions,  and  such  catalogues  does  he  receive  by 
every  post,  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  his  wares  than  to  part  with 
them  pleasantly,  and  as  a  country  bookseller  should,  <(  just  to 
clear  my  shelves,  you  know,  and  give  me  a  bit  of  room.  ®  The 
only  compensation  for  this  is  the  catalogues  themselves.  You 
get  them,  at  least,  for  nothing,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
they  make  mighty  pretty  reading. 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


461: 


These  high  prices  tell  their  own  tale,  and  force  upon  us  the 
conviction  that  there  never  were  so  many  private  libraries  in 
course  of  growth  as  there  are  to-day. 

Libraries  are  not  made;  they  grow.  Your  first  two  thousand 
volumes  present  no  difficulty,  and  cost  astonishingly  little  money. 
Given  ^400  and  five  years,  and  an  ordinary  man  can  in  the 
ordinary  course,  without  any  undue  haste  or  putting  any  pressure 
upon  his  taste,  surround  himself  with  this  number  of  books,  all 
in  his  own  language,  and  thenceforward  have  at  least  one  place- 
in  the  world  in  which  it  is  possible  to  be  happy.  But  pride  is 
still  out  of  the  question.  To  be  proud  of  having  two  thousand 
books  would  be  absurd.  You  might  as  well  be  proud  of  having 
two  topcoats.  After  your  first  two  thousand  difficulty  begins* 
but  until  you  have  ten  thousand  volumes  the  less  you  say  about 
your  library  the  better.  Then  you  may  begin  to  speak. 

It  is  no  doubt  a  pleasant  thing  to  have  a  library  left  you. 
The  present  writer  will  disclaim  no  such  legacy,  but  hereby  un¬ 
dertakes  to  accept  it,  however  dusty.  But,  good  as  it  is  to  in¬ 
herit  a  library,  it  is  better  to  collect  one.  Each  volume  then, 
however  lightly  a  stranger’s  eye  may  roam  from  shelf  to  shelf, 
has  its  own  individuality,  a  history  of  its  own.  You  remember 
where  you  got  it,  and  how  much  you  gave  for  it;  and  your  word 
may  safely  be  taken  for  the  first  of  these  facts,  but  not  for  the 
second. 

The  man  who  has  a  library  of  his  own  collection  is  able  to 
contemplate  himself  objectively,  and  is  justified  in  believing  in 
his  own  existence.  No  other  man  but  he  would  have  made  pre¬ 
cisely  such  a  combination  as  his.  Had  he  been  in  any  single 
respect  different  from  what  he  is,  his  library,  as  it  exists,  never 
would  have  existed.  Therefore,  surely  he  may  exclaim,  as  in  the 
gloaming  he  contemplates  the  backs  of  his  loved  ones,  a  They 
are  mine,  and  I  am  theirs.  ® 

But  the  eternal  note  of  sadness  will  find  its  way  even  through 
the  keyhole  of  a  library.  You  turn  some  familiar  page,  of 
Shakespeare  it  may  be,  and  his  *  infinite  variety, *  his  (<  multitu¬ 
dinous  mind,®  suggests  some  new  thought,  and  as  you  are  won¬ 
dering  over  it,  you  think  of  Lycidas,  your  friend,  and  promise 
yourself  the  pleasure  of  having  his  opinion  of  your  discovery  the 
very  next  time  when  by  the  fire  you  two  (<  help  waste  a  sullen 
day.®  Or  it  is,  perhaps,  some  quainter,  tenderer  fancy  that  en¬ 
gages  your  solitary  attention,  something  m  Sir  Philip  Sidney  or 


462 


AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 


Henry  Vaughan,  and  then  you  turn  to  look  for  Phyllis,  ever  the 
best  interpreter  of  love,  human  or  divine.  Alas!  the  printed 
page  grows  hazy  beneath  a  filmy  eye  as  you  suddenly  remember 
that  Lycidas  is  dead, — <(  dead  ere  his  prime,  » —  and  that  the  pale 
cheek  of  Phyllis  will  never  again  be  relumined  by  the  white 
light  of  her  pure  enthusiasm.  And  then  you  fall  to  thinking  of 
the  inevitable,  and  perhaps,  in  your  present  mood,  not  unwel¬ 
come  hour,  when  the  <(  ancient  peace })  of  your  old  friends  will 
be  disturbed,  when  rude  hands  will  dislodge  them  from  their  ac¬ 
customed  nooks  and  break  up  their  goodly  company. 

(( Death  bursts  amongst  them  like  a  shell, 

And  strews  them  over  half  the  town.” 

They  will  form  new  combinations,  lighten  other  men’s  toil,  and 
soothe  another’s  sorrow.  Fool  that  I  was  to  call  anything  mine! 

Complete.  From  <(  Obiter  Dicta. >> 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


(1809-1895) 

a  professional  scholar  of  the  highest  attainments  whom  no 
amount  of  learning  could  make  a  pedant,  John  Stuart  Blackie 
is  one  of  the  choicest  products  of  nineteenth-century  edu¬ 
cation.  For  him  the  Republic  of  Letters  was  a  democracy.  He  got 
at  the  simplicities  of  things.  The  great  scholars  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  who  studied  Homer  wrote  treatises  for  the 
aristocracy  of  learning  —  treatises  of  which  they  themselves  were  in¬ 
tolerably  proud.  As  a  result  of  their  ignorance  of  the  simple  har¬ 
monies  heaven  uses  to  wake  the  soul  of  such  a  singer  as  Homer, 
they  and  their  works  are  condemned  to  the  limbo  of  the  second-hand 
dealer’s  backrooms, —  a  limbo  from  which  those  who  do  not  fear 
learned  dust  may  rescue  them  at  a  shilling  a  pound.  wTake  the 
other  edition,  won’t  you?”  begged  a  bookseller  of  a  possible  cus¬ 
tomer;  <(I  can  sell  that  one  in  parchment  boards  for  $1.50,  because  it 
will  look  well  on  a  library  table.” 

It  was  to  this  that  a  masterpiece  of  the  great  Vossius  had  come 
at  last!  But  the  back  shelves  will  never  hold  Blackie.  He  learned 
from  Homer  that  the  Scotch  fiddle  which  instructed  Burns  in  melody 
had  in  it  the  soul  of  Greek  poetic  art.  From  the  studies  of  the  great 
masterpieces  of  Greece,  he  learned  to  know  and  to  reverence  as  sub¬ 
lime  the  simplicity  of  native  art  which  shaped  the  expression  of 
<(  When  the  Kye  Comes  Hame  ”  or  of  (< Annie  Laurie.”  (<  The  man 
who  strives  must  dare  to  err”  is  almost  what  Goethe  says  to  decide 
the  dispute  which  professional  scholars  have  each  with  the  theories 
of  all  the  rest.  Nothing  need  be  said  of  Blackie’s  theories  as  pro¬ 
fessor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  except,  indeed,  as 
they  led  him  to  write  essays  on  the  love  songs  of  Scotland.  In¬ 
trenched  as  he  is  in  the  affections  of  those  who  love  him  for  his  love 
of  music,  the  entire  Sanhedrin  of  great  critics  will  not  prevail  against 
him. 

Born  in  Glasgow  in  July,  1809,  he  was  educated  at  the  universities 
of  Edinburgh,  Gottingen,  Berlin,  and  Rome.  From  1852  until  1882  he 
was  professor  of  Greek  in  Edinburgh  University.  Among  his  publi¬ 
cations  of  this  period  were  metrical  translations  of  Aeschylus  and  of 
the  <(  Iliad,”  <(  Horae  Hellenicae,”  and  (<  Lays  and  Legends  of  Ancient 
Greece.”  He  was  by  nature  a  poet  and  musician,  and  his  best  work 


464 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


as  an  essayist  was  inspired  by  his  study  of  Scotch  melody.  His  own 
lyrical  poems  were  collected  and  published  during  his  lifetime.  He 
died  in  Edinburgh,  March  2d,  1895. 


THE  LOVE  SONGS  OF  SCOTLAND 

The  love  songs  of  Scotland  are  as  rich  and  various  as  the  flow¬ 
ers  of  the  field,  and  poured  out  from  all  quarters  as  spon¬ 
taneously  and  as  sweetly  as  the  song  of  the  mavis  in  May. 
Of  course,  in  the  midst  of  such  abundance  I  could  only  form  a 
bouquet  of  the  choicest  gems  of  song  that  had  either  laid  strong 
hold  of  my  fancy,  or  had  struck  deep  roots  in  the  popular  affec¬ 
tion;  and  when  I  had  chalked  out  my  scheme  of  classification,  I 
was  not  a  little  surprised,  and  at  the  same  time  delighted,  to  find 
that  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  whole  belonged  to  the  Cory- 
pheus  of  the  Choir.  This,  of  course,  proves  the  extraordinary 
wealth  of  our  lyrical  vegetation.  Burns,  in  fact,  never  would 
have  been  the  man  he  was  had  he  not  derived  an  inspiration 
from  the  people,  and  breathed  an  atmosphere  of  popular  song 
from  the  cradle;  and  to  stand  before  his  countrymen  in  the  soli¬ 
tary  sublimity  of  a  Shelley  or  a  Byron,  would  have  been  as 
hateful  to  his  nature  as  it  was  foreign  from  his  genius.  I  will 
therefore,  in  this  bouquet  of  love  lilts,  give  no  preference  to 
Burns,  except  where  he  comes  in  unsought  for  as  the  first  among 
equals,  the  most  prominent  and  the  most  popular  specimen  of 
the  class  which  he  is  called  on  to  illustrate;  and  the  classes  un¬ 
der  which  all  love  songs  naturally  arrange  themselves  are  four: 
love  songs  of  joy;  love  songs  of  sadness;  love  songs  of  wooing 
and  courtship;  and,  lastly,  love  songs  of  marriage  and  connubial 
life. 

I  begin  then,  now,  with  love  songs  of  joy,  —  as  indeed  joy  is 
the  end  of  all  existence;  and  love,  as  the  rapturous  recognition 
of  an  ideal,  is,  and  must  ever  be,  the  potentiation  of  the  higher 
human  joy;  and  if  there  be  any  that  would  give  a  preference  to 
woeful  ballads  and  sentimental  sighs  in  their  singing  of  love 
songs,  let  them  know  that  they  are  out  of  tune  with  the  great 
harmonies  of  nature,  and  that,  though  it  be  the  divine  virtue  of 
love  songs,  in  certain  cases,  to  sweeten  sorrow,  their  primary  pur¬ 
pose  is  to  give  wings  to  joy.  As  an  example  of  the  sweetness  of 
soul  and  sereneness  of  delight  that  belong  to  the  Scottish  love 
song,  we  cannot  do  better  than  commence  here  with  — 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIR 


465 


WHEN  THE  KYE  COMES  HAME 


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Come,  all  ye  jol-ly  shep-herds  that  whis-tle  thro’  the  glen,  I’ll 


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tell  ye  o’  a  se-cret  that  courtiers  din-na  ken.  What  is  the 


greatest  bliss  that  the  tongue  o’  man  can  name  ?  ’Tis  to  woo 


a  bon- 


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kye  comes  hame,  ’Tween  the  gloam-in’  and  the  mirk,  when  the  kye  comes  hame. 


’Tis  not  beneath  the  burgonet,  nor  yet  beneath  the  crown, 
'Tis  not  on  couch  of  velvet,  nor  yet  on  bed  of  down: 

'Tis  beneath  the  spreading  birch,  in  the  dell  without  a  name, 
Wi’  a  bonnie,  bonnie  lassie,  when  the  kye  comes  hame. 

Then  the  eye  shines  sae  bright,  the  haill  soul  to  beguile. 
There’s  love  in  every  whisper,  and  joy  in  every  smile; 

O  who  would  choose  a  crown,  wi’  its  perils  and  its  fame. 

And  miss  a  bonnie  lassie  when  the  kye  comes  hame. 

See  yonder  pawky  shepherd  that  lingers  on  the  hill  — 

His  yowes  are  in  the  fauld,  and  his  lambs  are  lying  still; 

Yet  he  downa  gang  to  rest,  for  his  heart  is  in  a  flame 
To  meet  his  bonnie  lassie  when  the  kye  comes  hame. 

Awa’  wi’  fame  and  fortune — what  comfort  can  they  gie?—- 
And  a’  the  arts  that  prey  on  man’s  life  and  libertie! 

Gie  me  the  highest  joy  that  the  heart  o’  man  can  frame, 

My  bonnie,  bonnie  lassie,  when  the  kye  comes  hame. 

11—30 


466 


JOHN  STUART  BLACK1E 


In  this  beautiful  lyric  observe  three  things  —  the  persons,  the 
scenery,  and  the  season  of  the  year.  It  was  long  a  fashion  to 
identify  lovers  with*  shepherds  or  swains,  till  the  affectation  and 
the  triteness  of  the  notion  made  the  Muse  sick  of  it;  but  it  nev¬ 
ertheless  had  reason  in  it,  as  the  life  of  the  shepherd  is  far 
more  favorable  both  to  thoughtful  meditation  and  to  tender  con¬ 
templation  than  professions  that  put  forth  their  energies  amid 
the  bustle  of  business,  the  whir  of  industrial  wheels,  or  the  pa¬ 
rade  of  public  life.  The  man  who  composed  this  song  was  a 
shepherd  living  in  a  land  of  shepherds,  and  in  him  it  could  be 
no  affectation;  but  whether  shepherd  or  not,  the  man  who  wishes 
to  compose  or  quietly  to  enjoy  a  love  song,  or,  what  is  better,  a 
loving  soul,  will  more  naturally  transport  himself  to  the  green 
slopes  and  the  broomy  knowes  of  a  quiet  land  of  shepherds  than 
to  the  splendid  roll  of  chariots  in  the  Park  at  London,  or  the 
motley  whirl  of  holiday  keepers  on  Hampstead  Heath.  The  scen¬ 
ery  of  the  best  love  songs  in  all  languages  is  decidedly  rural. 
No  doubt  there  may  be  love,  and  very  wise  love  too,  in  a  Lon¬ 
don  lane,  as  <(  Sally  in  Our  Alley,®  and  other  songs  abundantly 
testify;  but  they  will  want  something  to  stamp  on  them  the  type 
of  the  highest  classicality,  and  that  something  will  be  found  not 
far  from  the  Yarrow  braes  and  Ettrick  shaws,  <(  when  the  kye 
comes  hame.®  Love  in  a  green  glade,  or  by  a  river  side,  or  on 
a  heather  brae,  is  poetical,  for  there  the  living  glory  of  the  rap¬ 
tured  soul  within  finds  itself  harmonized  with  the  glory  of  the  liv¬ 
ing  mantle  of  the  Godhead  without;  whereas  love  in  a  fashionable 
saloon,  a  gay  drawing-room,  or  a  glittering  train  of  coaching  gen¬ 
tility,  is  both  less  congruous  on  account  of  its  artificial  surround¬ 
ings,  and  apt  to  degenerate  into  flirtation,  which  is  a  half-earnest 
imitation  of  the  least  earnest  half  of  love.  Observe  also  the  season 
of  the  year,  though  indicated  only  by  a  single  word  in  the  song: 
<(,Tis  beneath  the  spreading  birch, ®  the  most  graceful,  the  most 
fragrant,  and  the  most  Scottish  of  all  trees;  and  the  birch  spreads 
its  tresses  not  till  May  or  June.  It  is,  therefore,  in  May,  “when 
the  birds  sing  a  welcome  to  May,  sweet  May,®  and  the  <( zephyrs 
as  they  pass  make  a  pause  to  make  love  to  the  flowers,®  that 
love  songs  should  be  aired  and  marriages  made,  if  they  are  meant 
to  be  touched  with  the  finest  bloom  of  the  poetry  of  nature. 

The  author  of  this  song,  we  said,  was  a  shepherd,  and  we 
need  scarcely  say  that  the  shepherd  was  Hogg, —  a  name  that 
will  go  down  in  literary  tradition  along  with  Burns  and  Scott, 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


467 


John  Wilson  and  Lord  Cockburn,  as  typical  representatives  of  the 
best  virtues  of  the  Scottish  character  in  an  age  when  Scotland 
had  not  begun  to  be  ashamed  of  her  native  Muse,  and  to  lose 
herself  amid  the  splendid  gentilities  of  the  big  metropolis  on  the 
Thames.  In  outward  condition  and  social  circumstance,  Hogg 
was  more  nearly  allied  to  Burns  than  to  Scott;  if  Burns  was  a 
plowman  on  the  banks  of  Doon  in  Ayrshire,  Hogg  was  first  a 
cowherd,  then  a  shepherd,  and  then  a  farmer,  first  in  his  own 
native  parish  of  Ettrick,  in  the  highland  of  Selkirkshire,  and 
afterwards  on  Yarrow  braes,  not  far  from  the  sweet  pastoral  se¬ 
clusion  of  St.  Mary’s  Loch.  But  in  the  tone  of  his  mind,  as  well 
as  the  traditional  influences  of  his  birthplace,  he  belonged  to 
Scott.  In  literature  they  were  both  story-tellers  rather  than  song 
writers;  and  in  politics  they  were  both  Conservatives,  nourishing 
their  souls  in  a  sweet-blooded  way  on  the  heroic  traditions  and 
pleasant  memories  of  their  forefathers.  The  moving  tales  and 
strange  legends  from  the  fertile  pen  of  the  shepherd,  for  genera¬ 
tions  to  come,  will  help  innocently  to  entertain  the  fancy  of 
many  an  honest  cotter’s  fireside  in  the  long  winter  nights,  while 
the  strange  unearthly  weirdness  of  his  (<  Fife  Witch’s w  nocturnal 
ride,  and  the  spiritual  sweetness  of  his  (<  Bonny  Kilmeny,”  will 
secure  their  author  a  high  place  among  the  classical  masters  of 
imaginative  narrative  in  British  literature;  but  his  appearance  on 
the  field  of  narrative  poetry  in  the  same  age  with  the  more  rich 
and  powerful  genius  of  Scott  was  unfavorable  to  his  asserting  a 
permanent  position  as  a  poetical  story-teller.  It  is  as  a  song 
writer,  therefore,  that  he  is  likely  to  remain  best  known  to  the 
general  public;  for  though  in  this  department  he  has  no  preten¬ 
sions  to  the  wealth  or  the  power  or  the  fire  of  Burns,  he  has  pre¬ 
vailed  to  strike  out  a  few  strains  of  no  common  excellence  that 
have  touched  a  chord  in  the  popular  heart  and  found  an  echo  in 
the  public  ear:  and  this,  indeed,  is  the  special  boast  of  good 
popular  songs,  that  they  are  carried  about  as  jewels  and  as 
charms  in  the  breast  of  every  man  that  has  a  heart,  while  intel¬ 
lectual  works  of  a  more  imposing  magnitude,  like  palatial  castles, 
are  seen  only  by  the  few  who  purposely  go  to  see  them  or  acci¬ 
dently  pass  by  them.  Small  songs  are  the  circulating  medium  of 
the  people.  The  big  bullion  lies  in  the  bank. 

We  proceed  to  instance  a  few  other  classical  examples  of  that 
sweet,  pensive  musing  of  the  lover,  quietly  feeding  upon  beauty 
as  the  honeybee  feeds  on  the  flower, —  a  cheerfulness  and  a 


468 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


lusciousness  of  pure  emotion,  much  more  chaste,  much  more  safe, 
and  much  more  permanent  than  the  passion  which  glows  like  a 
furnace,  or  the  steam  which  threatens  to  explode.  Take  first  one 
of  Tannahill’s,  perhaps  not  the  best,  but  certainly  at  one  time  the 
most  popular,  of  his  love  songs :  — 


JESSIE,  THE  FLOW’R  O’  DUNBLANE 


C\  k 

'uti  f* 

jm  ‘Si’  * 

P K  P N  S 

-jt-zi 

m  | 

_  ,  4$ _ J _ U— J - 

v  o  m  P 

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V— u - V — 

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The  sun  has  gane  down  o’er  the  lof-ty  Ben  IyOmond,  And 


left 


A — ^ 


P- 


:4f: 


J* 


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JL 


the  red  clouds  to  pre  -  side  o’er  the  scene ;  While  lanely 


-w  ~ 

"iN - -V- 

.  K  k  & 

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s 

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J. 

— — PV" 

--v- 

- 

#•- 

M 

1  k  ’  1  _ 

~ai  '_^r  ^ . 

stray  in  the  calm  sim-mer  gloamin’,  To  muse  on  sweet  Jes-sie,  the 


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fiow’r  o’  Dun-blane.  How  sweet  is  the  brier,  wi’  its  saft  faulding 


blossom,  And  sweet  is  the  birk,  wi'  its  man -tie  o’  green;  Yet 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


469 


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sn^-»® — ^ — — K— #- 


Jes-sie,  the  flow’r  o’  Dun-blane,  Is  love-ly  young  Jes-sie,  Is 


She's  modest  as  ony,  an’  blythe  as  she’s  bonnie, 

For  guileless  simplicity  marks  her  its  ain; 

An’  far  be  the  villain,  divested  o’  feeling, 

Wha’d  blight  in  its  bloom  the  sweet  flow’r  o’  Dunblane. 

Sing  on,  thou  sweet  mavis,  thy  hymn  to  the  e’enin’, 

Thou’rt  dear  to  the  echoes  o’  Calderwood  glen; 

Sae  dear  to  this  bosom,  sae  artless  and  winning, 

Is  charming  young  Jessie,  the  flow’r  o’  Dunblane. 

It  is  recorded  by  those  who  are  versed  in  the  detailed  history 
of  Scottish  song,  that  there  never  was  such  a  Jessie  beneath  the 
shade  of  Leighton’s  grand  old  cathedral,  and  that  Ben  Lomond 
is  not  visible  from  that  venerable  haunt  of  Scottish  Episcopacy 
called  Dunblane, —  a  fact  worthy  of  note,  not  because  it  in  any 
wise  detracts  from  the  singable  excellence  of  the  song,  but  be¬ 
cause  it  is  in  this  respect  an  exception  to  the  general  character 
of  Scottish  songs,  which  always  spring  from  a  strong  root  in  re¬ 
ality,  never  deal  with  imaginary  persons, —  an  Amaryllis  or  an 
Amanda  for  the  nonce, — and  are  in  fact  as  true  as  a  photograph 
to  the  person  and  place  celebrated.  Here  is  another  ditty  in  a 
similar  strain,  composed  by  the  poet  under  the  immediate  inspira¬ 
tion  of  the  grassy  slopes,  wooded  hills,  dewy  dells,  and  wimpling 
brooks  of  his  own  beautiful  Renfrewshire;  a  poem  which,  for  pic¬ 
turesqueness  of  pastoral  scenery,  is,  I  will  venture  to  say,  un¬ 
surpassed  in  the  lyrical  literature  of  any  language,  ancient  or 
modern :  — 


470 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


GLOOMY  WINTER’S  NOO  AWA’ 


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jf  J** 0_ U  „Jf  A«L  

• 

H  0  •  ffL  |  j 

t?rs  .  p 

| 

r,  &  r  0  to 

■P— V — V  V — to  P—  - 

— V 

to - '/ - y - - 

Come,  my  las  -  sie,  let  us  stray  O’er  Glenkilloch’s  sun  -  ny  brae, 


Tow’ring  o’er  the  Newton  woods, 
Lav’rocks  fan  the  snaw-white  clouds, 
Siller  saughs,  wi’  downy  buds, 

Adorn  the  banks  sae  briery,  O. 

Round  the  sylvan  fairy  nooks, 

Feath’ry  breckans  fringe  the  rocks, 
'Neath  the  brae  the  burnie  jouks, 

And  ilka  thing  is  cheerie,  O. 

Trees  may  bud,  and  birds  may  sing, 
Flowers  may  bloom  and  verdure  spring, 
Joy  to  me  they  canna  bring, 

Unless  wi’  thee,  my  dearie,  O. 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


471 


Poor  Tannahill!  Paisley  truly  has  good  reason  to  be  proud  of 
her  hand-loom  weaver,  who  knew  to  mingle  the  whir  of  his  busy 
loom,  not  with  the  jarring  notes  of  political  fret  or  atheistic 
pseudo-philosophy,  but  with  the  sweet  music  of  nature  in  the 
most  melodious  season  of  the  year.  Sad  to  think  that  the  author 
of  this  song,  one  of  the  most  lovable,  kindly,  and  human-hearted 
of  mortals,  and  who,  in  spite  of  the  deficiencies  of  his  early  cul¬ 
ture,  had  achieved  a  reputation  second  only  to  Burns  among  the 
song  writers  of  his  tuneful  fatherland,  should  have  bade  farewell 
to  the  sweet  light  of  the  sun  and  the  fair  greenery  of  his  native 
glens  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six  —  drowning  himself,  poor  fel¬ 
low  !  in  a  pool  not  far  from  the  place  of  his  birth.  .  <(  Frail  race 
of  mortals,  these  poets ! }>  some  will  be  quick  to  exclaim.  <(  Burns 
and  Byron  died  at  thirty-seven,  Shelley  at  thirty,  Keats  at  twenty- 
six,  and  Kirke  White  even  younger.  Let  no  man  envy  the  gift 
of  song,  and  seek  to  batten  on  the  delicious  food  that  is  seasoned 
with  poison  and  sauced  with  death !  ®  But  this  is  a  mistake. 
Many  poets  live  long,  and  the  biggest  often  the  longest.  Anac¬ 
reon  lived  long,  Sophocles  lived  long,  Chaucer  lived  long,  Goethe 
lived  long,  Wordsworth  lived  long,  Southey  lived  long,  Wilson 
lived  within  a  year  of  the  legitimate  seventy,  and  Scott,  had  it 
not  been  for  unfortunate  and  commercial  mishaps  which  caused 
him  to  overstrain  his  powers,  with  another  decade  added  to  his 
years,  had  stuff  in  him  to  rival  that  rich  union  of  mellow  thought 
and  melodious  verse  which  all  men  admire  in  the  octogenarian 
poet-thinker  of  Weimar.  It  is  not  poets,  but  a  particular  kind 
of  poets,  that  die  early;  they  had  some  unhappy  ferment  in 
their  blood,  that  would  have  made  them  die  early,  as  men, 
had  they  never  written  a  verse.  It  was  not  poetry  that  killed 
Robert  Burns;  it  was  untempered  passion:  it  was  not  poetry 
that  drowned  Tannahill;  it  was  constitutional  weakness. 

It  would  be  unfair,  in  recalling  the  image  of  the  great  Paisley 
songster,  not  to  mention  the  distinguished  musical  composer  to 
whose  friendly  aid  he  owed  no  small  share  of  his  abiding  popu¬ 
larity.  Robert  Archibald  Smith,  though  born  in  Reading,  was  of 
Scotch  descent,  and  restored  to  his  native  country  in  the  year  1800, 
when  he  was  twenty  years  of  age.  A  native  of  East  Kilbride, 
his  father  had  followed  the  profession  of  silk  weaving  at  Paisley; 
and  on  his  return  from  Reading,  betook  himself  to  the  weaving 
of  muslin  in  that  town.  The  son,  following  the  father’s  lines, 
commenced  likewise  as  a  weaver  of  webs;  but  he  was  too  often 


47  2 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


found  scratching  crotchets  and  quavers  on  the  framework  of  the 
loom,  when  he  ought  to  have  been  watching  the  interlacings  or 
the  snappings  of  the  thread.  The  starvation  of  his  intellectual 
strivings  by  the  monotony  of  the  loom  operated  disadvantage- 
ously  on  a  constitution  not  naturally  strong;  and  the  depression 
of  spirits  into  which  he  was  falling  acted  as  a  wise  warning  for 
his  father  to  let  the  poor  bird  out  of  the  cage,  and  be  free  to 
flap  his  wings  in  the  musical  atmosphere  for  which  he  was  born. 
He  accordingly  threw  the  loom  aside,  and  commenced  a  distin¬ 
guished  musical  career,  first  as  leader  of  the  choir  in  the  Abbey 
Church,  Paisley,  and  then  in  St.  George’s  Church,  Edinburgh, 
where  he  enjoyed  the  stimulating  and  influential  fellowship  of 
Dr.  Andrew  Thomson,  a  theologian  distinguished  not  less  for  his 
refined  musical  taste  than  for  the  warmth  of  his  evangelical 
zeal  and  the  slashing  vigor  of  his  polemics.  While  holding  this 
situation,  he  sent  forth  a  series  of  well-known  and  highly  es¬ 
teemed  musical  publications,  both  in  the  sacred  and  secular 
sphere  of  the  noble  art  which  he  professed;  and,  though  he  had 
but  finished  half  what  might  have  been  prophesied  as  his  des¬ 
tined  career,  he  achieved  enough  to  cause  his  name  to  be  re¬ 
membered  in  the  history  of  Scottish  culture  as  the  pioneer  of  a 
new  era,  and  the  first  mover  in  a  necessary  reform.  The  church 
service  of  Scotland  had  suffered  too  long  from  the  barbarism  of 
a  certain  Puritanical  severity  that  had  no  better  reason  for  the 
neglect  of  music  in  religious  worship  than  that  it  was  cherished 
by  the  Romanists  and  the  Episcopalians;  and  the  name  of  R.  A. 
Smith,  the  friend  and  fellow-songster  of  Tannahill,  will  live  in 
the  grateful  memory  of  the  Scottish  people  as  the  herald  of  the 
advent  of  a  wiser  age  which  reconciles  devotion  to  her  natural 
ally  music,  and  removes  from  Presbytery  the  reproach  of  culti¬ 
vating  only  the  bald  prose  of  the  temple  service,  while  the 
graces  of  the  divinest  of  the  arts  are  left  in  the  exclusive  pos¬ 
session  of  other  churches,  whose  doctrine  may  be  less  sound,  and 
their  preaching  less  effective,  but  whose  attitude  is  more  digni¬ 
fied,  and  whose  dress  is  more  attractive. 

We  shall  content  ourselves  with  three  more  specimens  of  this 
initiatory  stage  of  present  sweetness  and  prospective  joy  in  love, 
and  then  pass  to  songs  of  wooing  and  courting,  which,  while 
they  are  more  richly  marked  by  dramatic  situation  and  incident, 
are  at  the  same  time  seldom  free  from  difficulties  and  entangle¬ 
ments  of  various  kinds,  over  which  even  the  persistency  that 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


473 


belongs  to  all  strong  instincts  and  noble  passions  cannot  always 
triumph.  The  first  is  the  popular  Dumfriesshire  song  of  :  — 


Max  -  wel  -  ton  braes  are 


bon  -  uie,  Where  ear  -  ly  fa’s  the 

3 


dew, 


A — S 


0 * 


f— — h 


K-V — V 


A — Nr — \ 


*  ^ 


And  it’s  there  thatAn-nie  I,au-rie  Gie’d  me  her  promise  true;  — 


£0+  am 

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Gie’d 

me  her 

pro-mise 

true,  Which  ne’er  for  - 

got 

will 

be : 

And 

for 

bon  -  nie  An  -  nie  Uau  -  rie  I’d  lay  me  down  and  dee. 


Her  brow  is  like  the  snaw-drift; 

Her  neck  is  like  the  swan; 

Her  face  it  is  the  fairest 

That  e’er  the  sun  shone  on;  — 
That  e’er  the  sun  shone  on  — 
And  dark  blue  is  her  e’e : 

And  for  bonnie  Annie  Laurie 
I’d  lay  me  down  and  dee. 

Like  dew  on  the  gowan  lying 
Is  the  fa’  o’  her  fairy  feet; 

And  like  winds  in  summer  sighing, 
Her  voice  is  low  and  sweet;  — 
Her  voice  is  low  and  sweet, 

And  she’s  a’  the  world  to  me: 
And  for  bonnie  Annie  Laurie 
I’d  lay  me  down  and  dee. 


474 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


The  heroine  of  this  song  was,  as  Chambers  informs  us,  a 
daughter  of  Sir  Robert  Laurie,  first  Baronet  of  Maxwelton;  and 
the  devoted  admirer  who  sang  her  praises  was  a  Mr.  Douglas  of 
Fingland.  It  may  be  interesting  to  compare  the  above  verses,  as 
now  commonly  sung,  with  the  original  verses  as  given  by  Cham¬ 
bers  :  — 


Maxwelton  braes  are  bonnie, 

Where  early  fa’s  the  dew; 

Where  me  and  Annie  Laurie 
Made  up  the  promise  true;  — 
Made  up  the  promise  true  — 

And  never  forget  will  I; 

And  for  bonnie  Annie  Laurie 
I’ll  lay  me  down  and  die. 

She’s  backit  like  the  peacock, 

She’s  briestit  like  the  swan; 

She’s  jimp  about  the  middle, 

Her  waist  ye  weel  micht  span;  — 
Her  waist  ye  weel  micht  span  — 
And  she  has  a  rolling  eye: 
And  for  bonnie  Annie  Laurie 
I’ll  lay  me  down  and  die. 


Our  second  is :  — 


OWRE  THE  MUIR  AMANG  THE  HEATHER 


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JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


475 


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&  is 

«L J 

nie 

las  - 

sie, 

Keep  - 

lr 

in’ 

a’ 

her 

ewes 

the 

-  g  i  t  h  e  r. 

Says  I,  my  dear,  where  is  thy  hame ; 

In  muir,  or  dale,  pray  tell  me  whether  ? 

Says  she,  I  tent  thae  fleecy  flocks 

That  feed  amang  the  bloomin’  heather. 

Owre  the  muir,  etc. 

We  sat  down  upon  a  bank, 

Sae  warm  and  sunny  was  the  weather: 

She  left  her  flocks  at  large  to  rove 
Amang  the  bonnie  bloomin’  heather. 

Owre  the  muir,  etc. 

She  charmed  my  heart,  and  aye  sinsyne 
I  couldna  think  on  any  ither; 

By  sea  and  sky!  she  shall  be  mine, 

The  bonnie  lass  amang  the  heather. 

Owre  the  muir,  etc. 

This  song  comes  to  us  with  a  whiff  of  the  mountain  heather, 
particularly  grateful  and  specially  salubrious  in  an  age  when  so 
much  of  the  best  music  is  condemned  to  be  sung  in  the  hot  air 
of  fashionable  saloons,  where  the  poetry  of  nature  is  utterly 
ignored  and  the  laws  of  health  systematically  violated.  The 
authoress  was  Jean  Glover,  a  Kilmarnock  girl,  who  had  the  mis¬ 
fortune  to  unite  her  fates  in  life  to  a  pleasant  fellow,  a  strolling 
player  or  mountebank,  with  whom  she  traveled  over  the  country 
frequenting  fairs  and  markets,  supporting  herself  and  entertain¬ 
ing  the  public  with  show  and  song  in  an  irregular  sort  of  way. 
Burns,  who  picked  up  the  song  from  her  in  one  of  her  strolling 
expeditions,  has  spoken  of  her  in  very  disparaging  terms  (for 
which,  see  Chambers,  page  49);  but  his  severe  judgment,  in  Miss 


47  6 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 


Tytler’s  delightful  work,  w  The  Songstresses  of  Scotland,”  re¬ 
ceives  a  kindly  mitigation.  She  died  at  Letterkenny,  in  Ireland, 
when  not  much  past  the  middle  term  of  life.  It  requires  very 
little  knowledge  of  human  nature  to  know  that  the  power  of 
striking  out  a  good  song  is  no  guarantee  for  the  steady  march 
or  the  fruitful  issue  of  a  well-rounded  life  drama.  Sensibility 
finds  a  vent  in  song;  purpose  shapes  a  career. 


From  his  Essays  on  <(the  Songs 
of  Scotland. » 


477 


4 


SIR  WILLIAM  BLACKSTONE 

(1723-1780) 

lackstone’s  <(  Commentaries  *  are  the  work  of  an  essayist  of 
the  first  rank.  It  is  true  that  his  greatness  as  a  jurist  and 
historian  of  law  obscures  the  high  literary  quality  of  his 
work;  but  constantly  throughout  the  <(  Commentaries, })  in  handling 
single  topics  of  universal  interest,  he  shows  the  artistic  sense  of  the 
unities  from  which  the  essay  derives  a  characteristic  vitality  such  as 
no  mere  disquisition,  however  valid  for  its  own  purpose,  can  have. 
An  essay  must  be  as  much  an  artistic  whole  as  a  poem.  It  must 
have  the  beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end,  each  in  harmony  with 
the  other,  as  Aristotle  insists,  so  that  it  will  represent  artistic  com¬ 
pleteness.  Wherever  one  of  Blackstone’s  essays  occur  in  his  <(  Com¬ 
mentaries,  ®  it  shows  these  characteristics  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
student  who  masters  Blackstone  must  necessarily  learn  the  principles 
of  literature  as  well  as  of  law.  The  first  volume  of  the  (<  Commen¬ 
taries  ®  appeared  in  1765,  the  last  in  1768.  Though  the  completed 
work  has  always  been  regarded  as  the  bulwark  of  the  English  aristo¬ 
cratic  idea  of  government,  Blackstone  was  no  friend  of  despotism  in 
any  form.  He  was  born  in  London,  July  10th,  1723.  In  1758  he  be¬ 
came  Vinerian  professor  of  Common  Law  at  Oxford,  and  in  1770  Jus¬ 
tice  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  He  died  February  14th,  1780. 
Eight  editions  of  his  great  work  appeared  during  his  lifetime.  With¬ 
out  doubt,  its  study  by  one  generation  of  lawyers  after  another  con- 

4 

stitutes  the  closest  bond  of  political  sympathy  between  England  and 
the  United  States. 


THE  PROFESSIONAL  SOLDIER  IN  FREE  COUNTRIES 

In  a  land  of  liberty  it  is  extremely  dangerous  to  make  a  dis¬ 
tinct  order  of  the  profession  of  arms.  In  absolute  monarch¬ 
ies  this  is  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  prince,  and  arises 
from  the  main  principle  of  their  constitution,  which  is  that  of 
governing  by  fear;  but  in  free  states  the  profession  of  a  soldier, 
taken  singly  and  merely  as  a  profession,  is  justly  an  object  of 
jealousy.  In  these  no  man  should  take  up  arms,  but  with  a 
view  to  defend  his  country  and  its  laws;  he  puts  not  off  the 


473 


SIR  WILLIAM  BLACKSTONE 


citizen  when  he  enters  the  camp;  but  it  is  because  he  is  a  citi¬ 
zen,  and  would  wish  to  continue  so,  that  he  makes  himself  for  a 
while  a  soldier.  The  laws  therefore  and  constitution  of  these 
kingdoms  know  no  such  state  as  that  of  a  perpetual  standing 
soldier,  bred  up  to  no  other  profession  than  that  of  war;  and  it 
was  not  till  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  that  the  kings  of  England 
had  so  much  as  a  guard  about  their  persons. 

In  the  time  of  our  Saxon  ancestors,  as  appears  from  Edward 
the  Confessor’s  laws,  the  military  force  of  this  kingdom  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  dukes  or  heretochs,  who  were  constituted  through 
every  province  and  county  in  the  kingdom;  being  taken  out  of 
the  principal  nobility,  and  such  as  were  most  remarkable  for  be¬ 
ing  (<  sapientesy  jideles ,  et  animosi .®  Their  duty  vras  to  lead  and 
regulate  the  English  armies,  writh  a  very  unlimited  power;  <( pr out 
eis  visum  fuerit ,  ad  honor  em  cor  once  et  utilitatem  regni .*  And 
because  of  this  great  power  they  were  elected  by  the  people  in 
their  full  assembly,  or  folkmote,  in  the  manner  as  sheriffs  were 
elected;  following  still  that  old  fundamental  maxim  of  the  Saxon 
constitution,  that  where  any  officer  was  intrusted  with  such 
power,  as  if  abused  might  tend  to  the  oppression  of  the  people, 
that  power  was  delegated  to  him  by  the  vote  of  the  people 
themselves.  So,  too,  among  the  ancient  Germans,  the  ancestors 
of  our  Saxon  forefathers,  they  had  their  dukes,  as  well  as  kings, 
with  an  independent  power  over  the  military,  as  the  kings  had 
over  the  civil  state.  The  dukes  were  elective,  the  kings  heredi¬ 
tary;  for  so  only  can  be  consistently  understood  that  passage  of 
Tacitus,  (< reges  ex  nobilitate ,  duces  ex  virtute  sumunt* ;  in  consti¬ 
tuting  their  kings,  the  family  or  blood  royal  was  regarded;  in 
choosing  their  dukes  or  leaders,  warlike  merit;  just  as  Caesar 
relates  of  their  ancestors  in  his  time,  that  whenever  they  went 
to  war,  by  way  either  of  attack  or  defense,  they  elected  leaders 
to  command  them.  This  large  share  of  power,  thus  conferred 
by  the  people,  though  intended  to  preserve  the  liberty  of  the 
subject,  was  perhaps  unreasonably  detrimental  to  the  prerogative 
of  the  crown;  and  accordingly  we  find  ill  use  made  of  it  by 
Edric,  duke  of  Mercia,  in  the  reign  of  King  Edmund  Ironside, 
who,  by  his  office  of  duke  or  heretoch,  was  entitled  to  a  large 
command  in  the  king’s  army,  and  by  his  repeated  treacheries  at 
last  transferred  the  crown  to  Canute  the  Dane. 

It  seems  universally  agreed  by  all  historians,  that  King  Alfred 
first  settled  a  national  militia  in  this  kingdom,  and  by  his  pru- 


SIR  WILLIAM  BLACKSTONE 


479 


dent  discipline  made  all  the  subjects  of  his  dominion  soldiers; 
but  we  are  unfortunately  left  in  the  dark  as  to  the  particulars  of 
this  his  so  celebrated  regulation;  though,  from  what  was  last  ob¬ 
served,  the  dukes  seem  to  have  been  left  in  possession  of  too 
large  and  independent  a  power;  which  enabled  Duke  Harold  on 
the  death  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  though  a  stranger  to  the 
royal  blood,  to  mount  for  a  short  space  the  throne  of  this  king¬ 
dom,  in  prejudice  of  Edgar  Atheling  the  rightful  heir. 

Upon  the  Norman  Conquest  the  feudal  law  was  introduced 
here  in  all  its  rigor,  the  whole  of  which  is  built  on  a  military 
plan.  I  shall  not  now  enter  into  the  particulars  of  that  consti¬ 
tution,  which  belongs  more  properly  to  the  next  part  of  our  ((  Com¬ 
mentaries  }>;  but  shall  only  observe  that,  in  consequence  thereof, 
all  the  lands  in  the  kingdom  were  divided  into  what  were  called 
knights’  fees,  in  number  above  sixty  thousand  (i) ;  and  for  every 
knight’s  fee  a  knight  or  soldier,  miles ,  was  bound  to  attend  the 
king  in  his  wars,  for  forty  days  in  a  year  (2) ;  in  which  space  of 
time,  before  war  was  reduced  to  a  science,  the  campaign  was 
generally  finished,  and  a  kingdom  either  conquered  or  victorious. 
By  this  means  the  king  had,  without  any  expense,  an  army  of 
sixty  thousand  men  always  ready  at  his  command.  And  accord¬ 
ingly  we  find  one,  among  the  laws  of  William  the  Conqueror, 
which  in  the  king’s  name  commands  and  firmly  enjoins  the  per¬ 
sonal  attendance  of  all  knights  and  others;  ^  quod  habeant  et  ten - 
eant  se  semper  in  armis  et  equis ,  ut  decet  et  oportet;  et  quod 
semper  sint  prompti  et  parati  ad  servitium  suum  integrum  nobis 
explendum  et  peragendum ,  cum  opus  adfuerit ,  secundum  quod  de¬ 
bent  feodis  et  tenementis  suis  de  jure  nobis  facer  eP  This  personal 
service  in  process  of  time  degenerated  into  pecuniary  commuta¬ 
tions  or  aids,  and  at  last  the  military  part  of  the  feudal  system 
was  abolished  at  the  Restoration. 

As  the  fashion  of  keeping  standing  armies,  which  was  first  in¬ 
troduced  by  Charles  VII.  in  France,  1445  A.  D.,  has  of  late  years 
universally  prevailed  over  Europe  (though  some  of  its  potentates, 
being  unable  themselves  to  maintain  them,  are  obliged  to  have 
recourse  to  richer  powers,  and  receive  subsidiary  pensions  for 
that  purpose),  it  has  also  for  many  years  past  been  annually 
judged  necessary  by  our  legislature,  for  the  safety  of  the  king¬ 
dom,  the  defense  of  the  possessions  of  the  crown  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain,  and  the  preservation  of  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe,  to 
maintain  even  in  time  of  peace  a  standing  body  of  troops,  under 


480 


SIR  WILLIAM  BLACKSTONE 


the  command  of  the  crown;  who  are,  however,  ipso  facto  dis¬ 
banded  at  the  expiration  of  every  year,  unless  continued  by  Par¬ 
liament.  And  it  was  enacted  by  statute  (10  W.  III.,  c.  1)  that 
not  more  than  twelve  thousand  regular  forces  should  be  kept  on 
foot  in  Ireland,  though  paid  at  the  charge  of  that  kingdom; 
which  permission  is  extended  by  statute  (8  Geo.  III.,  c.  13)  to 
16,235  men,  in  time  of  peace. 

To  prevent  the  executive  power  from  being  able  to  oppress, 
says  Baron  Montesquieu,  it  is  requisite  that  the  armies  with 
which  it  is  intrusted  should  consist  of  the  people,  and  have  the 
same  spirit  with  the  people;  as  was  the  case  at  Rome,  till  Marius 
new  modeled  the  legions  by  enlisting  the  rabble  of  Italy,  and 
laid  the  foundation  of  all  the  military  tyranny  that  ensued. 
Nothing,  then,  according  to  these  principles,  ought  to  be  more 
guarded  against  in  a  free  state,  than  making  the  military  power, 
when  such  a  one  is  necessary  to  be  kept  on  foot,  a  body  too 
distinct  from  the  people.  Like  ours,  it  should  be  wholly  com¬ 
posed  of  natural  subjects;  it  ought  only  to  be  enlisted  for  a  short 
and  limited  time;  the  soldiers  also  should  live  intermixed  with 
the  people;  no  separate  camp,  no  barracks,  no  inland  fortresses 
should  be  allowed.  And  perhaps  it  might  be  still  better  if,  by 
dismissing  a  stated  number,  and  enlisting  others  at  every  re¬ 
newal  of  their  term,  a  circulation  could  be  kept  up  between  the 
army  and  the  people,  and  the  citizen  and  the  soldier  be  more 
intimately  connected  together. 

To  keep  this  body  of  troops  in  order,  an  annual  act  of  Parlia¬ 
ment  likewise  passes,  (<  to  punish  mutiny  and  desertion,  and  for 
the  better  payment  of  the  army  and  their  quarters.”  This  regu¬ 
lates  the  manner  in  which  they  are  to  be  dispersed  among  the 
several  innkeepers  and  victualers  throughout  the  kingdom,  and 
establishes  a  law  martial  for  their  government.  By  this,  among 
other  things,  it  is  enacted  that  if  any  officer  or  soldier  shall  ex¬ 
cite,  or  join  any  mutiny,  or,  knowing  of  it,  shall  not  give  notice  to 
the  commanding  officer;  or  shall  desert,  or  list  in  any  other  reg¬ 
iment,  or  sleep  upon  his  post,  or  leave  it  before  he  is  relieved,  or 
hold  correspondence  with  a  rebel  or  enemy,  or  strike  or  use  vio¬ 
lence  to  his  superior  officer,  or  shall  disobey  his  lawful  commands ; 
such  offender  shall  suffer  such  punishment  as  a  court-martial 
shall  inflict,  though  it  extend  to  death  itself. 

However  expedient  the  most  strict  regulations  may  be  in  time 
of  actual  war,  yet  in  times  of  profound  peace  a  little  relaxation 


SIR  WILLIAM  BLACKSTONE 


481 


of  military  rigor  would  not,  one  should  hope,  be  productive  of 
much  inconvenience.  And  upon  this  principle,  though  by  our 
standing  laws  (still  remaining  in  force,  though  not  attended  to), 
desertion  in  time  of  war  is  made  felony,  without  benefit  of  clergy, 
and  the  offense  is  triable  by  a  jury  and  before  justices  at  the 
common  law;  yet,  by  our  militia  laws  before  mentioned,  a  much 
lighter  punishment  is  inflicted  for  desertion  in  time  of  peace.  So, 
by  the  Roman  law  also,  desertion  in  time  of  war  was  punished 
with  death,  but  more  mildly  in  time  of  tranquillity.  But  our 
Mutiny  Act  makes  no  such  distinction ;  for  any  of  the  faults  above 
mentioned  are,  equally  at  all  times,  punishable  with  death  itself, 
if  a  court-martial  shall  think  proper.  This  discretionary  power 
of  the  court-martial  is  indeed  to  be  guided  by  the  directions  of 
the  crown;  which,  with  regard  to  military  offenses,  has  almost  an 
absolute  legislative  power.  <(  His  Majesty, )}  says  the  act,  <(  may 
form  articles  of  war,  and  constitute  courts- martial,  with  power  to 
try  any  crime  by  such  articles,  and  inflict  penalties  by  sentence 
or  judgment  of  the  same.”  A  vast  and  most  important  trust!  an 
unlimited  power  to  create  crimes,  and  annex  to  them  any  punish¬ 
ments,  not  extending  to  life  or  limb!  These  are  indeed  forbid¬ 
den  to  be  inflicted,  except  for  crimes  declared  to  be  so  punishable 
by  this  act;  which  crimes  we  have  just  enumerated,  and  among 
which  we  may  observe  that  any  disobedience  to  lawful  commands 
is  one.  Perhaps  in  some  future  revision  of  this  act,  which  is  in 
many  respects  hastily  penned,  it  may  be  thought  worthy  the  wis¬ 
dom  of  Parliament  to  ascertain  the  limits  of  military  subjection, 
and  to  enact  express  articles  of  war  for  the  government  of  the 
army,  as  is  done  for  the  government  of  the  navy;  especially 
as,  by  our  constitution,  the  nobility  and  the  gentry  of  the  king¬ 
dom,  who  serve  their  country  as  militia  officers,  are  annually  sub¬ 
jected  to  the  same  arbitrary  rule  during  their  time  of  exercise. 

One  of  the  greatest  advantages  of  our  English  law  is  that 
not  only,  the  crimes  themselves  which  it  punishes,  but  also  the 
penalties  which  it  inflicts,  are  ascertained  and  notorious;  nothing 
is  left  to  arbitrary  discretion ;  the  king  by  his  judges  dispenses 
what  the  law  has  previously  ordained,  but  is  not  himself  the  legis¬ 
lator.  How  much  therefore  is  it  to  be  regretted  that  a  set  of 
men,  whose  bravery  has  so  often  preserved  the  liberties  of  their 
country,  should  be  reduced  to  a  state  of  servitude  in  the  midst 
of  a  nation  of  free  men!  for  Sir  Edward  Coke  will  inform  us 
that  it  is  one  of  the  genuine  marks  of  servitude,  to  have  the 
11— 31 


482 


SIR  WILLIAM  BLACKSTONE 


law,  which  is  our  rule  of  action,  either  concealed  or  precarious; 
*  miser  a  est  servitus  ubi  jus  est  vagum  aut  incognitum Nor  is 
this  the  state  of  servitude  quite  consistent  with  the  maxims  of 
sound  policy  observed  by  other  free  nations.  For  the  greater 
the  general  liberty  is  which  any  state  enjoys,  the  more  cautious 
has  it  usually  been  in  introducing  slavery  in  any  particular  order 
or  profession.  These  men,  as  Baron  Montesquieu  observes,  see¬ 
ing  the  liberty  which  others  possess,  and  which  they  themselves 
are  excluded  from,  are  apt  (like  eunuchs  in  the  eastern  seraglios) 
to  live  in  a  state  of  perpetual  envy  and  hatred  towards  the  rest 
of  the  community,  and  indulge  a  malignant  pleasure  in  contribut¬ 
ing  to  destroy  those  privileges  to  which  they  can  never  be  ad¬ 
mitted.  Hence  have  many  free  states,  by  departing  from  this 
rule,  been  endangered  by  the  revolt  of  their  slaves;  while  in  ab¬ 
solute  and  despotic  governments,  where  no  real  liberty  exists, 
and  consequently  no  invidious  comparisons  can  be  formed,  such 
incidents  are  extremely  rare.  Two  precautions  are  therefore  ad¬ 
vised  to  be  observed  in  all  prudent  and  free  governments:  1.  To 
prevent  the  introduction  of  slavery  at  all;  or,  2.  If  it  be  already 
introduced,  not  to  intrust  those  slaves  with  arms;  who  will  then 
find  themselves  an  overmatch  for  the  freemen.  Much  less  ought 
the  soldiery  to  be  an  exception  to  the  people  in  general,  and  the 
only  state  of  servitude  in  the  nation. 

From  (<  Commentaries  on  the  Law  of  England. ^ 


4  «3 


HUGH  BLAIR 

(1718-1800) 

ugh  Blair,  whose  (( Rhetoric })  made  him  famous  as  a  critical 
essayist,  was  born  at  Edinburgh,  April  7th,  1718.  He  was 
educated  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  and  its  chair  of 
Rhetoric  and  Belles  Lettres  was  founded  as  a  result  of  his  lectures 
delivered  under  the  patronage  of  Lord  Karnes.  A  still  more  impor¬ 
tant  result  was  Blair’s  <(  Lectures  on  Rhetoric,  ®  which  has  been  in  the 
hands  of  students  ever  since.  Dr.  Blair’s  work  as  a  preacher  and 
lecturer  makes  him  somewhat  discursive,  but  he  is  always  attractive. 
His  work  as  an  essayist  began  at  sixteen  with  an  (<  Essay  on  the  Beau¬ 
tiful, })  which  won  him  the  favor  of  Professor  Stevenson,  of  Edinburgh. 
In  1741  he  was  licensed  to  preach,  and  his  sermons,  when  published, 
were  greatly  admired  by  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson.  It  is  said  that  they 
have  been  (<  translated  into  almost  every  language  of  Europe. Dr. 
Blair  died  December  27th,  1800. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  HEBREWS 

The  several  kinds  of  poetical  composition  which  we  find  in 
Scripture,  are  chiefly  of  the  didactic,  elegiac,  pastoral,  and 
lyric.  Of  the  didactic  species  of  poetry,  the  book  of  Prov¬ 
erbs  is  the  principal  instance.  The  first  nine  chapters  of  that 
book  are  highly  poetical,  adorned  with  many  distinguished  graces 
and  figures  of  expression.  At  the  tenth  chapter  the  style  is 
sensibly  altered,  and  descends  into  a  lower  strain,  which  is  con¬ 
tinued  to  the  end;  retaining,  however,  that  sententious  pointed 
manner,  and  that  artful  construction  of  period,  which  distinguish 
all  the  Hebrew  poetry.  The  book  of  Ecclesiastes  comes  likewise 
under  this  head;  and  some  of  the  Psalms,  as  the  119th  in  par¬ 
ticular. 

Of  elegiac  poetry,  many  very  beautiful  specimens  occur  in 
Scripture:  such  as  the  lamentation  of  David  over  his  friend  Jona¬ 
than;  several  passages  in  the  prophetical  books;  and  several  of 
David’s  Psalms,  composed  on  occasions  of  distress  and  mourning. 
The  42d  Psalm,  in  particular,  is,  in  the  highest  degree,  tender 


484 


HUGH  BLAIR 


and  plaintive.  But  the  most  regular  and  perfect  elegiac  compo¬ 
sition  in  the  Scripture,  perhaps  in  the  whole  world,  is  the  book 
entitled  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah.  As  the  prophet  mourns 
in  that  book  over  the  destruction  of  the  temple,  and  the  holy 
city,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  whole  state,  he  assembles  all  the 
affecting  images  which  a  subject  so  melancholy  could  suggest. 
The  composition  is  uncommonly  artificial.  By  turns,  the  prophet, 
and  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  are  introduced,  as  pouring  forth  their 
sorrows;  and  in  the  end,  a  chorus  of  the  people  send  up  the 
most  earnest  and  plaintive  supplications  to  God.  The  lines  of 
the  original,  too,  as  may,  in  part,  appear  from  our  translation,  are 
longer  than  is  usual  in  the  other  kinds  of  Hebrew  poetry;  and 
the  melody  is  rendered  thereby  more  flowing  and  better  adapted 
to  the  querimonious  strain  of  elegy. 

The  Song  of  Solomon  affords  us  a  high  exemplification  of 
pastoral  poetry.  Considered  with  respect  to  its  spiritual  mean¬ 
ing,  it  is  undoubtedly  a  mystical  allegory;  in  its  form,  it  is  a  dra¬ 
matic  pastoral,  or  a  perpetual  dialogue  between  personages  in  the 
character  of  shepherds;  and  suitably  to  that  form,  it  is  full  of 
rural  and  pastoral  images,  from  beginning  to  end. 

Of  lyric  poetry,  or  that  which  is  intended  to  be  accompanied 
with  music,  the  Old  Testament  is  full.  Besides  a  great  number 
of  hymns  and  songs,  which  we  find  scattered  in  the  historical 
and  prophetical  books,  such  as  the  song  of  Moses,  the  song  of 
Deborah,  and  many  others  of  like  nature,  the  whole  book  of 
Psalms  is  to  be  considered  as  a  collection  of  sacred  odes.  In 
these,  we  find  the  ode  exhibited  in  all  the  varieties  of  its  form, 
and  supported  with  the  highest  spirit  of  lyric  poetry;  sometimes 
sprightly,  cheerful,  and  triumphant;  sometimes  solemn  and  mag¬ 
nificent;  sometimes  tender  and  soft.  From  these  instances,  it 
clearly  appears  that  there  are  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures 
full  exemplifications  of  several  of  the  chief  kinds  of  poetical 
writing. 

Among  the  different  composers  of  the  sacred  books,  there  is 
an  evident  diversity  of  style  and  manner;  and  to  trace  their  dif¬ 
ferent  characters  in  this  view  will  contribute  not  a  little  towards 
our  reading  their  writings  with  greater  advantage.  The  most 
eminent  of  the  sacred  poets  are  the  authors  of  the  books  of  Job, 
David,  and  Isaiah.  As  the  compositions  of  David  are  of  the  lyric 
kind,  there  is  a  greater  variety  of  style  and  manner  in  his  works 
than  in  those  of  the  other  two.  The  manner  in  which,  consid- 


HUGH  BLAIR 


485 


ered  merely  as  a  poet,  David  chiefly  excels  is  the  pleasing,  the 
soft,  and  the  tender.  In  his  Psalms  there  are  many  lofty  and 
sublime  passages;  but,  in  strength  of  description,  he  yields  to 
Job;  in  sublimity,  he  yields  to  Isaiah.  It  is  a  sort  of  temper¬ 
ate  grandeur,  for  which  David  is  chiefly  distinguished;  and  to 
this  he  always  soon  returns,  when,  upon  some  occasions,  he  rises 
above  it.  The  Psalms  in  which  he  touches  us  most  are  those  in 
which  he  describes  the  happiness  of  the  righteous,  or  the  good¬ 
ness  of  God;  expresses  the  tender  breathings  of  a  devout  mind, 
or  sends  up  moving  and  affectionate  supplications  to  Heaven. 
Isaiah  is,  without  exception,  the  most  sublime  of  all  poets.  This 
is  abundantly  visible  in  our  translation;  and  what  is  a  material 
circumstance,  none  of  the  books  of  Scripture  appear  to  have  been 
more  happily  translated  than  the  writings  of  this  prophet.  Majesty 
is  his  reigning  character;  a  majesty  more  commanding,  and  more 
uniformly  supported,  than  is  to  be  found  among  the  rest  of  the 
Old  Testament  poets.  Pie  possesses,  indeed,  a  dignity  and  gran¬ 
deur,  both  in  his  conceptions  and  expressions,  which  is  altogether 
unparalleled,  and  peculiar  to  himself.  There  is  more  clearness 
and  order  too,  and  a  more  visible  distribution  of  parts,  in  his 
book,  than  in  any  other  of  the  prophetical  writings. 

When  we  compare  him  with  the  rest  of  the  poetical  prophets, 
we  immediately  see  in  Jeremiah  a  very  different  genius.  Isaiah 
employs  himself  generally  on  magnificent  subjects.  Jeremiah 
seldom  discovers  any  disposition  to  be  sublime,  and  inclines  al¬ 
ways  to  the  tender  and  elegiac.  Ezekiel,  in  poetical  grace  and 
elegance,  is  much  inferior  to  them  both;  but  he  is  distinguished 
by  a  character  of  uncommon  force  and  ardor.  To  use  the  ele¬ 
gant  expressions  of  Bishop  Lowth,  with  regard  to  this  prophet: 
<(  hst  atrox ,  vehemens ,  tragicus;  in  sensibus  fervidus ,  acerbus,  indig- 
nabundus ;  in  imaginibus  fecundus ,  truculentus ,  et  nonnunquam  pen } 
de for  mis;  in  dictione  grandiloquus ,  gravis,  austerus,  et  inter dum 
incultus;  frequens  in  repetitionibus,  non  decoris  aut  gratice  causa, 
sed  ex  indignatione  et  violent  id.  Quidquid  susceperit  tractandum  id 
sedulb  persequitur ;  in  eo  unice  heeret  defixus;  a  proposito  raro  de¬ 
flect  ens.  In  cceteris,  a  plerisque  vatibus  fortasse  superatus;  sed  in 
eo  genere,  ad  quod  videtur  a  natura  unice  comparatus,  nimirum , 
vi,  ponder e,  impetu,  granditate,  nemo  unquam  eum  super avitP  The 
same  learned  writer  compares  Isaiah  to  Homer,  Jeremiah  to  Si¬ 
monides,  and  Ezekiel  to  ^Eschylus.  Most  of  the  book  of  Isaiah 
is  strictly  poetical;  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  not  above  one-half 


486 


HUGH  BLAIR 


can  be  held  to  belong  to  poetry.  Among  the  minor  prophets, 
Hosea,  Joel,  Micah,  Habakkuk,  and  especially  Nahum,  are  distin¬ 
guished  for  poetical  spirit.  In  the  prophecies  of  Daniel  and 
Jonah,  there  is  no  poetry. 

It  only  now  remains  to  speak  of  the  book  of  Job,  with  which 
I  shall  conclude.  It  is  known  to  be  extremely  ancient;  generally 
reputed  the  most  ancient  of  all  the  poetical  books;  the  author 
uncertain.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  book  has  no  connection 
with  the  affairs  or  manners  of  the  Jews  or  Hebrews.  The  scene 
is  laid  in  the  land  of  Uz,  or  Idumaea,  which  is  a  part  of  Arabia; 
and  the  imagery  employed  is  generally  of  a  different  kind  from 
what  I  before  showed  to  be  peculiar  to  the  Hebrew  poets.  We 
meet  with  no  allusions  to  the  great  events  of  sacred  history,  to 
the  religious  rites  of  the  Jews,  to  Lebanon  or  to  Carmel,  or  any 
of  the  peculiarities  of  the  climate  of  Judaea.  We  find  few  com¬ 
parisons  founded  on  rivers  or  torrents;  these  were  not  familiar 
objects  in  Arabia.  But  the  longest  comparison  that  occurs  in 
the  book  is  to  an  object  frequent  and  well  known  in  that  region, 
a  brook  that  fails  in  the  season  of  heat  and  disappoints  the  ex¬ 
pectation  of  the  traveler. 

The  poetry,  however,  of  the  book  of  Job,  is  not  only  equal  to 
that  of  any  other  of  the  sacred  writings,  but  is  superior  to  them 
all,  except  those  of  Isaiah  alone.  As  Isaiah  is  the  most  sublime, 
David  the  most  pleasing  and  tender,  so  Job  is  the  most  descrip¬ 
tive  of  all  the  inspired  poets.  A  peculiar  glow  of  fancy  and 
strength  of  description  characterize  the  author.  No  writer  what¬ 
ever  abounds  so  much  in  metaphors.  He  may  be  said  not  to 
describe,  but  to  render  visible  whatever  he  treats  of.  A  variety 
of  instances  might  be  given.  Let  us  remark  only  those  strong 
and  lively  colors  with  which,  in  the  following  passages  taken 
from  the  eighteenth  and  twentieth  chapters  of  his  book,  he  paints 
the  condition  of  the  wicked ;  observe  how  rapidly  his  figures  rise 
before  us,  and  what  a  deep  impression,  at  the  same  time,  they 
leave  on  the  imagination.  <(  Knowest  thou  not  this  of  old,  since 
man  was  placed  upon  the  earth,  that  the  triumphing  of  the 
wicked  is  short,  and  the  joy  of  the  hypocrite  but  for  a  moment  ? 
Though  his  excellency  mount  up  to  the  heavens,  and  his  head 
reach  the  clouds,  yet  he  shall  perish  forever.  He  shall  fly  away 
as  a  dream,  and  shall  not  be  found;  yea,  he  shall  be  chased 
away  as  a  vision  of  the  night.  The  eye  also  which  saw  him 
shall  see  him  no  more;  they  which  have  seen  him  shall  say: 


HUGH  BLAIR 


487 


Where  is  he?  He  shall  suck  the  poison  of  asps;  the  viper’s 
tongue  shall  slay  him.  In  the  fullness  of  his  sufficiency  he  shall 
be  in  straits;  every  hand  shall  come  upon  him.  He  shall  flee 
from  the  iron  weapon,  and  the  bow  of  steel  shall  strike  him 
through.  All  darkness  shall  be  hid  in  his  secret  places.  A  fire 
not  blown  shall  consume  him.  The  heavens  shall  reveal  his  in¬ 
iquity,  and  the  earth  shall  rise  up  against  him.  The  increase  of 
his  house  shall  depart.  His  goods  shall  flow  away  in  the  day  of 
wrath.  The  light  of  the  wicked  shall  be  put  out;  the  light  shall 
be  dark  in  his  tabernacle.  The  steps  of  his  strength  shall  be 
straitened,  and  his  own  counsel  shall  cast  him  down.  For  he  is 
cast  into  a  net  by  his  own  feet.  He  walketh  upon  a  snare. 
Terrors  shall  make  him  afraid  on  every  side;  and  the  robber 
shall  prevail  against  him.  Brimstone  shall  be  scattered  upon  his 
habitation.  His  remembrance  shall  perish  from  the  earth,  and  he 
shall  have  no  name  in  the  street.  He  shall  be  driven  from  light 
into  darkness.  They  that  come  after  him  shall  be  astonished  at 
his  day.  He  shall  drink  of  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty. w 


TASTE  AND  GENIUS 


aste  and  genius  are  two  words  frequently  joined  together; 


and  therefore  by  inaccurate  thinkers,  confounded.  They 


signify,  however,  two  quite  different  things.  The  difference 
between  them  can  be  clearly  pointed  out;  and  it  is  of  impor¬ 
tance  to  remember  it.  Taste  consists  in  the  power  of  judging; 
genius,  in  the  power  of  executing.  One  may  have  a  considerable 
degree  of  taste  in  poetry,  eloquence,  or  any  of  the  fine  arts,  who 
has  little  or  hardly  any  genius  for  composition  or  execution  in 
any  of  these  arts;  but  genius  cannot  be  found  without  including 
taste  also.  Genius,  therefore,  deserves  to  be  considered  as  a 
higher  power  of  the  mind  than  taste.  Genius  always  imports 
something  inventive  or  creative;  which  does  not  rest  in  mere 
sensibility  to  beauty  where  it  is  perceived,  but  which  can,  more¬ 
over,  produce  new  beauties,  and  exhibit  them  in  such  a  manner 
as  strongly  to  impress  the  minds  of  others.  Refined  taste  forms 
a  good  critic;  but  genius  is  further  necessary  to  form  the  poet, 
or  the  orator. 

It  is  proper  also  to  observe  that  genius  is  a  word,  which,  in 
common  acceptation,  extends  much  further  than  to  the  objects  of 


4S8 


HUGH  BLAIR 


taste.  It  is  used  to  signify  that  talent  or  aptitude  which  we 
receive  from  nature  for  excelling  in  any  one  thing  whatever. 
Thus  we  speak  of  a  genius  for  mathematics  as  well  as  a  genius 
for  poetry;  of  a  genius  for  war,  for  politics,  or  for  any  mechani¬ 
cal  employment. 

This  talent  or  aptitude  for  excelling  in  some  one  particular, 
is,  I  have  said,  what  we  receive  from  nature.  By  art  and  study, 
no  doubt,  it  may  be  greatly  improved ;  but  by  them  alone  it 
cannot  be  acquired.  As  genius  is  a  higher  faculty  than  taste,  it 
is  ever,  according  to  the  usual  frugality  of  nature,  more  limited 
in  the  sphere  of  its  operations.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  meet 
with  persons  who  have  an  excellent  taste  in  several  of  the  polite 
arts,  such  as  music,  poetry,  painting,  and  eloquence,  altogether; 
but  to  find  one  who  is  an  excellent  performer  in  all  these  arts 
is  much  more  rare;  or  rather,  indeed,  such  an  one  is  not  to  be 
looked  for.  A  sort  of  universal  genius,  or  one  who  is  equally 
and  indifferently  turned  towards  several  different  professions  and 
arts,  is  not  likely  to  excel  in  any.  Although  there  may  be  some 
few  exceptions,  yet  in  general  it  holds  that  when  the  bent  of  the 
mind  is  wholly  directed  towards  some  one  object,  exclusive  in  a 
manner  of  others,  there  is  the  fairest  prospect  of  eminence  in 
that,  whatever  it  be.  The  rays  must  converge  to  a  point,  in 
order  to  glow  intensely.  This  remark  I  here  choose  to  make,  on 
account  of  its  great  importance  to  young  people,  in  leading  them 
to  examine  with  care,  and  to  pursue  with  ardor,  the  current  and 
pointing  of  nature  towards  those  exertions  of  genius  in  which 
they  are  most  likely  to  excel. 

A  genius  for  any  of  the  fine  arts,  as  I  before  observed,  always 
supposes  taste;  and  it  is  clear  that  the  improvement  of  taste  will 
serve  both  to  forward  and  to  correct  the  operations  of  genius. 

In  proportion  as  the  taste  of  a  poet,  or  orator,  becomes  more 

refined  with  respect  to  the  beauties  of  composition,  it  will  cer¬ 
tainly  assist  him  to  produce  the  more  finished  beauties  in  his 
work.  Genius,  however,  in  a  poet  or  orator,  may  sometimes  exist 
in  a  higher  degree  than  taste;  that  is,  genius  may  be  bold  and 
strong,  when  taste  is  neither  very  delicate  nor  very  correct. 

This  is  often  the  case  in  the  infancy  of  arts;  a  period  when 

genius  frequently  exerts  itself  with  great  vigor,  and  executes 
with  much  warmth;  while  taste,  which  requires  experience,  and 
improves  by  slower  degrees,  hath  not  yet  attained  to  its  full 
growth.  Homer  and  Shakespeare  are  proofs  of  what  I  now 


HUGH  BLAIR 


489 


assert;  in  whose  admirable  writings  are  found  instances  of  rude¬ 
ness  and  indelicacy,  which  the  more  refined  taste  of  later  writers, 
who  had  far  inferior  genius  to  them,  would  have  taught  them  to 
avoid.  As  all  human  perfection  is  limited,  this  may  very  proba¬ 
bly  be  the  law  of  our  nature,  that  it  is  not  given  to  one  man  to 
execute  with  vigor  and  fire,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  attend  to  all 
the  lesser  and  more  refined  graces  that  belong  to  the  exact  per¬ 
fection  of  his  work;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  thorough  taste 
for  those  inferior  graces  is  for  the  most  part  accompanied  with 
a  diminution  of  sublimity  and  force. 

Having  thus  explained  the  nature  of  taste,  the  nature  and  im¬ 
portance  of  criticism,  and  the  distinction  between  taste  and  gen¬ 
ius,  I  am  now  to  consider  the  sources  of  the  pleasures  of  taste. 
Here  opens  a  very  extensive  field;  no  less  than  all  the  pleasures 
of  the  imagination,  as  they  are  commonly  called,  whether  afforded 
us  by  natural  objects,  or  by  the  imitations  and  descriptions  of 
them.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  the  purpose  of  my  lectures  that 
all  these  should  be  examined  fully;  the  pleasure  which  we  re¬ 
ceive  from  discourse  or  writing  being  the  main  object  of  them. 
All  that  I  propose  is  to  give  some  openings  into  the  pleasures 
of  taste  in  general,  and  to  insist  more  particularly  upon  sublim¬ 
ity  and  beauty. 

We  are  far  from  having  yet  attained  to  any  system  concern¬ 
ing  this  subject.  Mr.  Addison  was  the  first  who  attempted  a 
regular  inquiry,  in  his  essay  on  the  <(  Pleasures  of  the  Imagina¬ 
tion,  ®  published  in  the  sixth  volume  of  the  Spectator.  He  has 
reduced  these  pleasures  under  three  heads, —  beauty,  grandeur, 
and  novelty.  His  speculations  on  this  subject,  if  not  exceedingly 
profound,  are,  however,  very  beautiful  and  entertaining;  and  he 
has  the  merit  of  having  opened  a  track  which  was  before  un¬ 
beaten.  The  advances  made  since  his  time  in  this  curious  part 
of  philosophical  criticism  are  not  very  considerable,  though  some 
ingenious  writers  have  pursued  the  subject.  This  is  owing,  doubt¬ 
less,  to  that  thinness  and  subtilty  which  are  found  to  be  proper¬ 
ties  of  all  the  feelings  of  taste.  They  are  engaging  objects;  but 
when  we  would  lay  firm  hold  of  them,  and  subject  them  to  a 
regular  discussion,  they  are  always  ready  to  elude  our  grasp.  It 
is  difficult  to  make  a  full  enumeration  of  the  several  objects  that 
give  pleasure  to  taste:  it  is  more  difficult  to  define  all  those 
which  have  been  discovered,  and  to  reduce  them  under  proper 
classes;  and,  when  we  would  go  further,  and  investigate  the  efficient 


49° 


HUGH  BLAIR 


causes  of  the  pleasure  which  we  receive  from  such  objects,  here, 
above  all,  we  find  ourselves  at  a  loss.  For  instance:  we  all  learn 
by  experience  that  certain  figures  of  bodies  appear  to  us  more 
beautiful  than  others.  On  inquiring  further,  we  find  that  the 
regularity  of  some  figures,  and  the  graceful  variety  of  others,  are 
the  foundation  of  the  beauty  which  we  discern  in  them;  but 
when  we  attempt  to  go  a  step  beyond  this,  and  inquire  what  is 
the  cause  of  regularity  and  variety  producing  in  our  minds  the 
sensation  of  beauty,  any  reason  we  can  assign  is  extremely  im¬ 
perfect.  These  first  principles  of  internal  sensation  nature  seems 
to  have  covered  with  an  impenetrable  veil. 

It  is  some  comfort,  however,  that  although  the  efficient  cause 
be  obscure,  the  final  cause  of  those  sensations  lies  in  many  cases 
more  open;  and,  in  entering  on  this  subject,  we  cannot  avoid 
taking  notice  of  the  strong  impression  which  the  powers  of  taste 
and  imagination  are  calculated  to  give  us  of  the  benignity  of  our 
Creator.  By  endowing  us  with  such  powers,  he  hath  widely  en¬ 
larged  the  sphere  of  the  pleasure  of  human  life;  and  those,  too, 
of  a  kind  the  most  pure  and  innocent.  The  necessary  purposes  of 
life  might  have  been  abundantly  answered,  though  our  senses 
of  seeing  and  hearing  had  only  served  to  distinguish  external 
objects,  without  conveying  to  us  any  of  those  refined  and  deli¬ 
cate  sensations  of  beauty  and  grandeur  with  which  we  are  now 
so  much  delighted.  This  additional  embellishment  and  glory, 
which  for  promoting  our  entertainment  the  Author  of  nature 
hath  poured  forth  upon  his  works,  is  one  striking  testimony, 
among  many  others,  of  benevolence  and  goodness.  This  thought, 
which  Mr.  Addison  first  started,  Doctor  Akenside,  in  his  poem  on 
the  <(  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination,®  has  happily  pursued:  — 

(<.  .  .  Not  content 

With  every  food  of  life  to  nourish  man. 

By  kind  illusions  of  the  wondering  sense, 

Thou  mak’st  all  nature  beauty  to  his  eye, 

Or  music  to  his  ear.® 


From  his  <(  Lectures.® 


49i 


PIETRO  BLASERNA 

(1836-) 

rofessor  Pietro  Blaserna,  of  the  Royal  University  of  Rome, 
is  the  author  of  numerous  notable  essays  on  scientific  sub¬ 
jects.  Among  them  are  «  The  Principles  of  the  Conservation 
of  Energy ”  (1864);  « Inductive  Currents »;  and  «  The  Dynamic  Theory 
of  Heat”  (1872).  This  latter  essay  was  followed  by  <(  The  Theory  of 
Sound  in  Its  Relation  to  Music”  (1875),  which  was  at  once  translated 
into  French,  English,  and  other  languages. 

Blaserna  was  educated  at  the  University  of  Vienna  and  in  Paris, 
where  he  was  attached  to  the  Laboratory  of  Regnault.  In  1863  he 
became  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Palermo,  and  in  1878  in  that 
of  Rome,  where  he  was  put  in  charge  of  the  Italian  Laboratory  of  the 
Physical  Sciences. 


MUSIC,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN 


Primitive  music  is  as  ancient  as  history  itself.  From  the  high 
plains  of  Asia,  where  many  ancient  historical  traces  of  it 
are  found,  it  followed  man  in  his  wanderings  through 
China,  India,  and  Egypt.  One  of  the  most  ancient  books,  the 
Bible,  speaks  of  music  often  and  from  its  earliest  pages. 

David  and  Solomon  were  very  musical.  They  composed  psalms 
full  of  inspiration,  and  evidently  intended  to  be  sung.  To  the 
latter  is  due  the  magnificent  organizations  of  the  singing  in  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem.  He  founded  a  school  for  singers,  and  a 
considerable  band,  which  at  last  reached  the  number  of  four 
thousand  trumpeters,  the  principal  instruments  being  the  harp, 
the  cithern,  the  trumpet,  and  the  drum. 

It  is  incontestably  established  that  the  Greeks  had  no  true 
principle  of  harmony  even  in  their  most  prosperous  times.  The 
only  thing  that  they  did  in  this  respect  was  to  accompany  in  oc¬ 
taves  when  men  and  boys  executed  the  same  melody. 

Thus  their  instrumentation  only  served  to  reinforce  the  voice 
part,  whether  it  was  played  in  unison  or  in  octaves,  or  whether 


492 


PIETRO  BLASERNA 


more  or  less  complicated  variations  were  executed  between  one 
verse  and  another,  or  even  between  the  parts  of  a  verse.  With 
them  music  was  an  auxiliary  art,  intended  to  increase,  by  ideal¬ 
izing  it,  the  effect  of  words. 

The  development  of  their  music  must  be  regarded  only  from 
this  point  of  view,  and  in  this  respect  it  must  be  admitted  that 
they  arrived  at  a  considerable  degree  of  perfection,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  truly  primitive  form  under  which  it  appears  at  the  pres¬ 
ent  time.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  lofty  declamation,  with  more 
variable  rhythm  and  more  frequent  and  more  pronounced  modu¬ 
lation  than  ordinary  declamation.  This  music  was  much  enjoyed 
by  the  Greeks,  and  when  it  is  considered  that  the  Greeks  were 
the  most  artistic  and  most  creative  nation  that  has  ever  existed, 
it  becomes  necessary  to  look  with  care  for  the  refinements  which 
their  music  must,  and  in  fact  does,  contain. 

The  Greek  musical  scale  was  developed  by  successive  fifths. 
Raising  a  note  to  its  fifth  signifies  multiplying  its  number  of 
vibrations  per  second  by  f.  This  principle  was  rigorously  main¬ 
tained  by  the  Greeks;  rigorously  because  the  fourth,  of  which 
they  made  use  from  the  very  beginning,  is  only  the  fifth  below 
the  fundamental  note  raised  an  octave.  To  make  the  tracing  out 
of  these  musical  ideas  clearer,  recourse  will  be  had  to  our  mod¬ 
ern  nomenclature,  making  the  supposition  that  our  scale,  which 
will  be  studied  later  on  in  its  details,  is  already  known  to  the 
reader;  calling  the  fundamental  note  c ,  and  the  successive  notes 
of  our  scale,  d ,  e,  fy  g,  a ,  b ,  c}  with  the  terms  sharps  and  flats  for 
the  intermediate  notes,  as  is  done  in  our  modern  music.  In  this 
scale  the  first  note,  the  c ,  represents  the  fundamental  note,  the 
others  are  successively  the  second,  the  third,  the  fourth,  the  fifth, 
the  sixth,  the  seventh,  and  the  octave,  according  to  the  position 
which  they  occupy  in  the  musical  scale. 

If  the  c  be  taken  as  a  point  of  departure,  its  fifth  is  g ,  and 
its  fifth  below  is  f.  If  this  last  note  be  raised  an  octave  so  as 
to  bring  it  nearer  to  the  other  notes,  and  if  the  octave  of  c  be 
also  added,  the  following  four  notes  are  obtained:  — 

c .  /»  g ,  c, 

whose  musical  ratios  are, — 

I  4  3.  ry 

1  t 

These  four  notes,  according  to  an  ancient  tradition,  constituted 
the  celebrated  lyre  of  Orpheus.  Musically  speaking,  it  is  cer* 


PIETRO  BLASERNA 


493 


tainly  very  poor,  but  the  observation  is  interesting  that  it  con¬ 
tains  the  most  important  musical  intervals  of  declamation.  In 
fact,  when  an  interrogation  is  made,  the  voice  rises  a  fourth. 
To  emphasize  a  word,  it  rises  another  tone,  and  goes  to  the  fifth. 
In  ending  a  story,  it  falls  a  fifth,  etc.  Thus  it  may  be  under¬ 
stood  that  Orpheus’s  lyre,  notwithstanding  its  poverty,  was  well 
suited  to  a  sort  of  musical  declamation. 

Progress  by  fifths  up  and  down  can  be  further  continued. 
The  fifth  of  g  is  d ,  and  if  it  be  lowered  an  octave  its  musical 
ratio  will  be  f.  The  fifth  below  f  is  b  flat ,  whence  its  musical 
ratio  when  raised  an  octave  is  We  have  then  the  following 

scale :  — 

c,  d,  /,  g,  b  flat ,  ct 

whose  intervals  are, — 

T  9  4  3  9  - 

8 »  3  >  2>  Tl>> 

which  is  nothing  more  than  a  succession  of  fifths,  all  transposed 
into  the  same  octave  in  the  following  way:  — 


b  flat ,  /,  cy  g,  d. 


This  is  the  ancient  Scotch  and  Chinese  scale,  in  which  an 
enormous  number  of  popular  songs  are  written,  especially  those 
of  Scotland  and  Ireland,  which  all  have  a  peculiar  and  special 
coloring. 

But  the  scale  can  be  continued  further  by  successive  fifths. 
Omitting,  as  the  Greeks  did,  the  fifth  below  b  flat ,  and  adding  in¬ 
stead  three  successive  fifths  upward,  we  shall  have  a  as  the  fifth 
of  d ,  and  e  as  the  fifth  of  a;  and  finally  b  as  the  fifth  of  e. 

The  ratios  of  these  notes,  when  brought  into  the  same  octave, 
will  be. 

2 1  8.1  2.4  3 

T6*  6?»  12  8* 


whence  the  scale  will  be  the  following:  — 


with  the  ratios, — 


c,  d,  e,  /,  g,  a,  b,  c, 


i, 


9.  8  1 

8*  ST’ 


3* 


h  H* 


143 

128’ 


2. 


The  first  and  the  second  of  the  last  three  fifths  mentioned 
above,  the  a  and  the  e ,  were  introduced  by  Terpandro;  the  last, 
the  b,  by  Pythagoras,  whence  the  Greek  scale  still  bears  the 


494 


PIETRO  BLASERNA 


name  of  the  Pythagorean  scale.  It  is  formed,  as  has  been  seen,, 
by  successive  fifths  —  that  is  to  say,  with  the  fundamental  idea  of 
simple  ratios. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  observe  that  the  execution  of  this  idea 
is  not  entirely  happy.  It  is  true  that  the  law  of  formation  is 
very  simple,  but  the  individual  notes  have,  nevertheless,  an  ori¬ 
gin  very  distant  from  the  fundamental  note.  The  mode  of 
formation  of  the  scale  was  well  suited  for  tuning  the  strings  of 
the  lyre,  and  this  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  principal  mo¬ 
tives  for  adopting  this  mode  of  formation;  but  the  interval  be¬ 
tween  any  two  notes  of  the  scale  is  anything  but  simple.  It 
may  thus  be  seen  further  that  some  of  the  notes  bear  extremely 
complex  ratios  to  the  fundamental  note. 

This  is  especially  the  case  with  the  three  notes  last  intro¬ 
duced  into  the  scale, —  that  is  to  say,  those  corresponding  to  our 
a ,  e,  and  b, —  which  no  longer  bear  simple  ratios  to  the  funda¬ 
mental  note,  being  expressed  by  the  fractions  f-J ,  f f-f-f. 

The  last  would  not  be  a  matter  of  much  importance.  The  b 
can  only  be  considered  as  a  passing  note,  which  by  its  open  dis¬ 
sonance  leads  up  to  the  c,  or  other  consonant  note.  Its  being 
more  or  less  dissonant  does  no  harm,  and  may  in  certain  cases 
be  pleasing.  But  that  the  third  and  sixth  bear  complex  ratios  is 
a  grave  defect,  and  this  is  probably  the  principal  reason  why  the 
Greek  music  did  not  develop  harmony.  The  Pythagorean  third 
and  sixth  are  decidedly  dissonant,  and  with  the  fourth  and  fifth 
alone  no  development  of  harmony  is  possible,  the  more  so  that 
the  interval  between  the  fourth  and  fifth  is  rather  small,  and 
therefore  dissonant. 

The  Pythagorean  scale  held  almost  exclusive  sway  in  Greece. 
However,  in  the  last  centuries  before  the  Christian  era, —  that  is 
to  say,  during  the  period  of  Greek  decline  in  politics  and  art, — 
many  attempts  at  modifying  it  are  found.  Thus,  for  example, 
they  divided  the  interval  between  the  notes  corresponding  to  our 
c  and  d  into  two  parts,  introducing  a  note  in  the  middle.  At 
last  they  went  so  far  as  again  to  divide  these  intervals  in  two, 
thus  introducing  the  quarter  tone ,  which  we  look  upon  as  dis¬ 
cordant.  Others  again  introduced  various  intervals,  founded  for 
the  most  part  rather  on  theoretical  speculations  than  on  artistic 
sentiment. 

All  these  attempts  have  left  no  trace  behind  them,  and  there¬ 
fore  are  of  no  importance.  But  the  Pythagorean  scale  passed 


PIETRO  BLASERNA 


495 


from  Greece  to  Italy,  where  it  held  sovereign  sway  up  to  the 
sixteenth  century,  at  which  epoch  began  its  slow  and  successive 
transformation  into  our  two  musical  scales. 

It  ought  to  be  added  that  the  Greeks,  in  order  to  increase 
the  musical  resources  of  their  scale,  also  formed  from  it  several 
different  scales,  which  are  distinguished  from  the  first  only  by 
the  point  of  departure. 

The  law  of  formation  was  very  simple;  in  fact,  suppose  the 
scale  written  as  follows:  — 


G  d,  e,  /,  g,  a ,  b,  c. 

Any  note  whatever  may  be  taken  as  a  starting  point,  and  the 
scale  may  be  written,  for  example,  thus:  — 


or  — 


e,  /,  g,  d  b,  c,  d,  e; 
a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  /,  g,  a,  etc. 


It  is  evident  that  seven  scales  in  all  can  be  formed  in  this  way, 
which  were  not  all  used  by  the  Greeks  at  different  epochs,  but 
which  were  all  possible.  A  musical  piece,  founded  on  one  or 
other  of  them,  must  evidently  have  had  a  distinctive  character; 
and  it  is  in  this  respect,  in  the  blending  of  shades,  that  Greek 
melody  must  be  considered  as  richer  than  ours,  which  is  subject 
to  far  more  rigid  rules. 

The  different  Greek  scales  underwent  much  disturbance  in 
Italy.  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan,  and  later,  Pope  Gregory  the 
Great,  had  the  merit  of  re-establishing  the  first  four;  and  the 
second,  the  rest  of  the  Greek  scales.  Thus  ecclesiastical  music 
(the  Ambrosian  and  Gregorian  chants)  acquired  a  clearer  and 
more  elevated  character.  It  was  a  recitative  on  a  long-sustained 
or  short  note,  according  to  the  words  that  accompanied  it,  music 
for  a  single  voice,  which  is  still  partially  retained,  and  which  may 
be  said  to  differ  from  the  Greek  music  only  by  the  purpose  for 
which  it  is  intended. 

In  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  an  attempt  was  begun, 
especially  in  Flanders,  at  polyphonic  music, —  that  is  to  say,  at 
music  for  several  voices.  It  consisted  in  combining  two  different 
melodies,  so  as  not  to  produce  discord.  This  sort  of  music  also 
advanced  rapidly  in  Italy.  In  the  time  of  Guido  d’  Arezzo,  the 


496  PIETRO  BLASERNA 

celebrated  inventor  of  musical  notation,  such  pieces  were  com¬ 
posed,  in  which  frequent  use  was  made  of  successive  fifths  —  a 
thing  most  displeasing  to  the  ear,  and  which  we  now  look  upon 
as  a  serious  mistake  in  music.  By  the  impulse  of  Josquino  and 
Orlando  Tasso,  the  last  and  perhaps  the  most  important  composer 
of  that  school,  polyphonic  music  was  developed  in  a  surprising 
manner.  Three,  four,  and  more  melodies  were  combined  in  a 
most  complicated  fashion,  in  which  the  art  of  combination  had  a 
much  more  considerable  part  than  artistic  inspiration  —  mere  tours 
de  force  without  any  musical  worth !  Such  music  was  especially 
cultivated  by  church  singers,  to  whom  was  thus  given  a  means 
of  displaying  their  own  ability.  The  voices  were  interwoven  in 
a  thousand  ways,  and  the  only  restraint  on  the  composer  was  not 
to  produce  unpleasant  discords.  Luther’s  great  Reformation  put 
an  end  to  this  fictitious  and  artificial  style  of  music.  Protestantism, 
rising  into  importance  at  that  time,  made  it  a  necessity  that  church 
singing  should  be  executed  by  the  congregation,  and  not  by  a 
special  class  of  singers.  The  music  was  therefore  obliged  to  be 
simplified  to  put  it  within  the  power  of  all.  The  ground  was 
already  prepared  for  this.  The  Troubadours,  Minstrels,  and  Min- 
nesanger  had  developed  primitive  and  simple  melody,  whence 
sprang  madrigals  and  popular  songs.  And  thus  for  polyphonic 
music  another  form  was  substituted,  in  which  the  different  voices 
sustain  each  other. 

Harmony ,  properly  so  called,  arose  from  these  simple  and  sus¬ 
tained  chords,  and  from  the  easy  movement  of  the  different  voice 
parts. 

The  shock  of  the  German  movement  was  felt  even  in  Italy, 
where  musical  reform  was  initiated  in  a  truly  genial  way  by 
Palestrina,  partly,  indeed,  to  follow  the  deliberations  of  the  Coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent.  Palestrina  abandoned  the  artificial  method  in  use 
up  to  that  time,  and  laid  the  most  stress  on  simplicity  and  deeply 
artistic  inspiration.  His  compositions  (“Crux  fidelis,”  “  Impro- 
peria,*  <(  Missa  papae  Marcelli,”  etc.)  are,  and  always  will  be,  a 
model  of  that  style. 

But  so  radical  a  transformation  could  not  be  brought  about 
by  one  individual,  nor  in  a  short  time.  The  Pythagorean  scale, 
which  was  in  general  use  at  the  time,  was  opposed  to  a  true  de¬ 
velopment  of  harmony,  and  the  more  so  when  the  execution  of 
the  music  was  intrusted  to  human  voices  in  which  every  dis¬ 
cord  becomes  doubly  perceptible.  True  harmony  could  only  be 


PIETRO  j->  ..ASERNA 


497 


developed  by  means  of  the  successive  transformations  of  the  mus¬ 
ical  scale  into  another,  in  which  the  ratios  of  the  notes  to  the 
fundamental  note,  and  to  each  other,  were  as  simple  as  possible. 
It  is  thus  that  the  different  Greek  scales  have  been  transformed 
by  degrees  into  our  two  modern  scales  —  that  is,  into  the  major 
scale  and  the  minor  scale.  The  first  was  more  easily  to  be 
found,  but  the  second,  with  its  two  variations  for  the  ascending 
and  descending  movement,  is  not  found  completely  developed 
until  the  seventeenth  century,  when  music  had  attained  an  ad¬ 
mirable  degree  of  development,  and  when  there  were  magnificent 
schools  of  music  and  singing  in  the  principal  cities  of  Italy. 

Yet  another  idea  characterizes  our  modern  music:  the  idea  of 
the  fundamental  note  and  chord.  This  idea  did  not  exist  in 
Greek  music,  although  certain  passages  of  Aristotle  point  to 
something  similar.  It  did  not  exist  in  the  Ambrosian  chant,  but 
began  to  be  developed  with  polyphonic  music.  The  interlaced 
singing  of  the  Middle  Ages  demanded,  as  a  practical  condition, 
that  the  different  singers  should  frequently  return  to  one  note, 
as  to  a  firm  resting  place,  in  order  to  keep  together.  The  more 
complicated  the  harmony  was,  the  more  necessary  such  a  resting 
place  became.  It  is  thus  that  the  idea  of  the  fundamental  note 
or  tonic  was  developed,  and  later,  the  idea  of  the  fundamental 
chord  and  of  key.  This  precept  has  become  more  and  more 
rigid,  as  music  has  become  more  complicated.  It  is  now  required 
that  a  piece  of  music  should  begin  and  end  with  the  funda¬ 
mental  chord,  which  can  only  be  a  perfect  major  or  minor  chord, 
and  that  in  the  following  out  of  the  musical  idea,  and  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  great  masses  of  chorus  and  orchestra,  the  fun¬ 
damental  note  should  often  recur,  as  a  necessary  resting  place  for 
our  comprehension. 

From  (<The  Theory  of  Sound  in  its 
Relation  to  Music. » 

n— 32 


KARL  BLIND 

(1820-) 


arl  Blind,  essayist,  scientist,  and  revolutionist,  was  born  at 
Mannheim,  September  4th,  1820,  and  educated  at  Heidel¬ 
berg  and  Bonn  Universities.  In  1847  when  all  Europe  was 
stirred  by  the  progressive  impulse  which  developed  the  German  revo¬ 
lutionary  movement  of  1848  and  1849,  Blind  was  still  a  student  at  the 
University.  He  was  an  enthusiastic  sympathizer  in  the  revolutionary 
movement,  and,  after  being  repeatedly  imprisoned,  took  refuge  in 
England  where  he  lived  until  1867,  being  then  allowed  to  return  to 
Germany.  He  has  devoted  much  attention  to  the  scientific  study  of 
Teutonic  and  Norse  mythology.  Among  his  published  works  are 
<(  The  Siegfried  Tale  ®  and  <(  Fire  Burial  among  our  Germanic  Fore¬ 
fathers. }> 


WODAN  AND  THE  WANDERING  JEW 


Odin  or  Wodan,  the  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  was  conceived  by 
our  forefathers  as  a  great  wanderer.  His  very  name  de¬ 
scribes  him  as  the  All-pervading.  Watan  in  Old  High  Ger¬ 
man,  wadan  in  Old  Saxon,  and  vadha  in  Old  Norse,  are  of  the 
same  root  as  the  Latin  vadere  and  (with  the  introduction  of  a 
nasal  sound)  the  German  wandern  —  to  go,  to  permeate,  to  wan¬ 
der  about.  Wodan  is  the  Breath  of  the  World;  his  voice  is  in 
the  rushing  wind.  Restlessly  he  travels  through  all  lands.  The 
Sanskrit  wdta ,  which  etymologically  belongs  to  the  same  root, 
signifies  the  wind;  and  the  wind,  in  that  early  Aryan  tongue, 
is  also  called  “  the  Ever  Traveling. ® 

Hence  several  of  the  many  names  under  which  Odin  was 
known  represent  him  as  being  forever  on  the  move.  In  the 
poetic  <(  Edda ®  he  is  called  Gangradr ;  Gangleri  (still  preserved 
in  the  Scottish  (<  gangrel ® —  that  is,  a  stroller);  and  Wegtam  —  all 
meaning  the  Wayfarer.  In  one  of  the  Eddie  songs  in  which  he 
appears  incarnated  as  Grimnir,  he  wears  a  blue  mantle  —  a  sym¬ 
bolic  representation  of  the  sky,  of  which  he  is  the  lord,  and  along 
which  he  incessantly  travels.  In  the  prose  “Edda,®  where  his 


KARL  BLIND 


499 


image  is  reflected,  in  the  (<  Incantation  of  Gylfi,  ”  under  the  guise 
of  a  man  who  makes  inquiries  about  all  things  in  the  Heavenly 
Hall  of  Asgard,  he  assumes  a  name  meaning  the  <(  Wayfarer.  ” 
He  there  says  that  he  (( comes  from  a  pathless  distance,”  and 
asks  (<for  a  night’s  lodging”  —  exactly  as,  in  later  times,  we  find 
the  Wandering  Jew  saying,  and  asking  for,  the  same. 

In  the  Icelandic  Heimskringla  (the  <(  World  Circle  ”)  the  semi- 
historical,  semi-mythical  Odin,  whose  realm  lay  near  the  Black 
Sea,  and  who  ruled  in  company  with  twelve  temple  priests,  called 
Diar  (that  is,  gods,  or  divines),  again  appears  as  a  great  mi¬ 
gratory  warrior.  He  was  <(  often  away  for  years,  wandering 
through  many  lands.  ”  The  story  of  this  powerful  captain  in  war, 
who  led  the  Germanic  hosts  from  Asia  or  Asa-land,  through 
Gardariki  (Russia)  and  Saxon-land  (Germany)  to  the  Scandinavian 
North,  is  inextricably  mixed  up  with  the  story  of  the  Odin  of 
mythology.  But  it  is  noteworthy  that  a  restless,  peregrinatory 
spirit  —  that  spirit  which,  later  on,  made  the  Teutonic  tribes  over¬ 
run  all  Europe,  and  even  the  North  of  Africa — is  also  the  char¬ 
acteristic  of  the  warlike  leader  of  the  Icelandic  hero-chronicle. 

Saxo  calls  Odin  the  viator  mdefessus  —  the  Indefatigable  Wan¬ 
derer.  The  Northern  Sagas  are  full  of  the  records  of  his  many 
journeys.  In  the  Ragnar  Lodbrog  Saga,  however,  we  see  Odin 
already  changed  into  a  gray-headed  pilgrim,  with  long  beard, 
broad  hat,  and  nail-clad  shoes,  pointing  out  the  paths  to  Rome. 
The  broad  hat  everywhere  characterizes  the  great  god  in  Teutonic 
lands.  It  signifies  the  cloud  region  —  the  head-dress,  as  it  were, 
of  the  earth.  In  many  Germanic  tales,  the  once  powerful  ruler 
of  the  world  wears  a  motley  mantle  of  many  colors  pieced  to¬ 
gether.  This  seemingly  undignified  garment  is  but  another  sym¬ 
bolic  rendering  of  the  spotted  sky. 

Now  the  motley,  many-colored  mantle,  as  well  as  the  enor¬ 
mous  broad  hat  and  the  heavy  shoes  of  the  Wandering  Wodan,  re¬ 
cur,  on  the  one  hand,  in  the  curious  shirt  of  St.  Christophorus, 
and,  on  the  other,  in  two  of  the  chief  attributes  of  the  Wander¬ 
ing  Jew.  The  coincidence  is  so  striking,  that  Gotthard  Heideg¬ 
ger  already  declared,  at  a  time  when  the  science  of  mythology  was 
little  developed  yet,  that <(  the  great  Christophorus  and  the  Wander- 
ing  Jew  go  together.”  At  present,  little  doubt  is  entertained  that, 
so  far  as  the  Church  legend  is  concerned  in  Germanic  countries, 
Christophorus  carrying  the  Savior  over  the  water  has  replaced 
the  older  heathen  tale  of  the  giant  Wate  carrying  Wieland  over 


5°° 


KARL  BLIND 


the  water.  Curiously  enough,  this  tale  has  its  prototype  in  a 
Krishna  legend  in  India.  Wate,  as  even  his  name  shows,  was 
only  a  Titanic  counterpart  of  Wodan,  who  himself  appears  in  the 
Asa  religion  also  under  the  form  of  a  water  god,  or  Neptune. 

But  before  going  into  a  comparison  between  the  symbolical 
attributes  of  the  errant  Ahasverus  and  those  of  Germanic  deities, 
the  tale  of  the  Wild  Huntsman  has  to  be  looked  at,  for  he  is  the 
link  between  Wodan  and  the  Wandering  Jew. 

This  tale  of  the  Wild  Huntsman  is  found  all  over  Germany, 
and  in  neighboring  countries  where  the  German  race  has  pene¬ 
trated  during  the  migrations,  in  an  endless  variety  of  forms. 
Wodan-Odin  was  the  Psychopompos,  the  leader  of  the  departed 
into  Walhalla.  The  Wild  Pluntsman,  who  has  taken  his  place, 
careers  along  the  sky  with  his  ghostly  retinue.  In  the  same  way 
Freia,  who  in  heathen  times  received  a  number  of  the  dead  in 
her  heavenly  abode,  is  converted  into  a  Wild  Huntress,  who  hur¬ 
ries  round  at  night  with  the  unfortunate  souls. 

The  names  given  in  Germany  to  these  spectral  leaders  of  a 
nocturnal  devilry  bear  a  mark  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  In 
German-Austria  the  Wild  Huntsman  is  called  Wotn,  Wut,  or 
Wode;  in  Holstein,  Mecklenburg,  and  Pomerania,  Wod.  The 
name  corresponds  to  that  of  the  Wild  Huntsman  in  Sweden, 
where  it  is  Oden.  In  the  same  way  a  female  leader  of  the  wild 
chase  meets  us  as  Frau  Wode,  Gode,  or  Gauden;  again,  as  Frick, 
Berchta,  Holla,  Hera,  Herka,  or,  biblically  changed,  Herodias;  all 
the  former  names,  with  the  apparent  exception  of  the  latter, 
being  but  appellatives  of  the  same  heathen  goddess.  To  the 
seemingly  biblical  name  of  Herodias,  in  some  places  a  male 
Herodis  corresponds.  But  I  hold  that  a  Hera,  Odin’s  wife,  could 
without  difficulty  be  formed  into  a  Herodias.  And  an  Oden,  who 
was  a  Heer-Vater  (Father  of  the  Armed  Hosts),  and  who  after¬ 
ward  became  a  leader  of  the  Wilde  Heer,  was  as  easily  disguised 
into  a  Herodis. 

The  gradual  transition  from  the  heathen  Germanic  circle  of 
ideas  to  the  Christian  legend  is  provable  in  many  other  ways. 
On  Swiss  and  German  soil,  in  places  of  close  proximity,  the  same 
phantom  form  is  alternately  called  the  Eternal  Hunter  and  the 
Eternal  Jew,  as  well  as  the  Pilgrim  from  Rome  or  the  Wander¬ 
ing  Pilate.  In  the  last-mentioned  form,  he  is  assigned  a  local 
habitation  in  the  Pilatus  Mountain  of  Switzerland.  It  is  a  well- 
known  process  of  Germanic  mythology  to  (<  enmountain,  *  if  I 


KARL  BLIND 


5QI 

may  say  so,  the  deposed  heathen  gods,  to  charm  them  away  into 
hills  and  underground  caves,  where  they  are  converted  into  kings 
and  emperors,  often  with  a  retinue  of  twelve  men,  corresponding 
to  the  duodecimal  number  of  the  deities. 

A  forest-haunting  or  hill-enchanted  Jew  has  clearly  no  mean¬ 
ing.  But  if  the  Jude  was  originally  a  Wodan,  Godan,  or  Gudan, 
—  and,  indeed,  there  is  a  Frankish  form  of  the  god’s  appellation, 
from  which  the  Godesberg,  near  Bonn,  has  its  name,  —  then  the 
mystery  is  at  once  dissolved.  Godan  may,  by  softer  pronuncia¬ 
tion,  have  been  changed  into  a  Jude  or  Jew, — even  as  the  (<  Giit- 
chenj  the  German  spirit  forms,  were  converted  into  Jiidchen,  or 
little  Jews. 

Where  the  Wanderer  is  known,  in  the  Aargau,  as  the  Ewige 
Jude ,  it  is  related  that  in  the  inn  where  he  asks  for  a  night’s 
lodging  he  does  not  go  to  bed,  but  walks  about,  without  rest,  in 
his  room  during  the  whole  night,  and  then  leaves  in  the  morn¬ 
ing.  He  once  stated  that,  when  for  the  first  time  he  came  to 
that  Rhenish  corner  where  Basel  stands  at  present,  there  was 
nothing  but  a  dark  forest  of  black  fir.  On  his  second  journey 
he  found  there  a  large  copse  of  thorn  bushes;  on  his  third,  a 
town  rent  by  an  earthquake.  If,  he  added,  he  comes  the  same 
way  a  third  time,  one  would  have  to  go  for  miles  and  miles 
in  order  to  find  even  as  much  as  little  twigs  for  making  a 
besom. 

The  immense  age  and  everlastingness  of  the  Wanderer  are 
fully  indicated  in  this  description. 

At  Berne  he  is  said  to  have,  on  one  occasion,  left  his  staff 
and  his  shoes.  In  a  (<  History  of  the  Jews  in  Switzerland  »  (Basle, 
1768),  the  Zurich  clergyman  Ulrich  reports  that  in  the  Govern¬ 
ment  Library  at  Berne  a  precious  relic  is  preserved  —  namely, 
the  aforesaid  staff  and  a  pair  of  shoes  of  the  <(  Eternal,  Immortal 
Jew});  the  shoes  being  (<  uncommonly  large  and  made  of  a  hun¬ 
dred  snips, —  a  shoemaker’s  masterpiece,  because  patched  together 
with  the  utmost  labor,  diligence,  and  cleverness,  out  of  so  many 
shreds  of  leather. }>  Evidently  some  impostor  —  who,  however, 
kept  up  to  the  floating  ideas  of  the  old  Germanic  myth,  which 
had  grown  into  a  Christian  legend  —  had  thought  fit,  in  order  to 
maintain  his  assumed  character,  to  present  the  town  of  Berne,  as 
it  were,  with  a  diminished  facsimile  of  Vidar’s  shoe. 

At  Ulm,  also,  the  Wandering  Jew  is  said  to  have  left  a  pair 
of  his  shoes.  This  persistent  connection  of  a  decayed  divine 


5°2 


KARL  BLIND 


figure  with  shoes  and  the  cobbler’s  craft  comes  out  in  a  number 
of  tales  about  the  Wild  Huntsman.  In  Northern  Germany,  one 
of  the  many  forms  of  the  Ewig-Jdger  is  called  Schlorf-Hacker, — 
a  ghastly  figure  in  rattling  shoes  or  slippers  that  jumps  pick-a- 
back  upon  men’s  shoulders.  In  Glarus,  the  departed  spirits  of 
the  Wild  Chase  are  actually  called  (<  Shoemakers, }>  as  if  they  had 
been  contributors  to  Vidar’s  shoe.  A  full  explanation  of  this 
symbolism  —  for  it  can  be  nothing  else — is  still  wanting.  But 
the  importance  of  the  shoe,  both  in  the  Germanic  creed  and  in 
the  Ahasverus  legend,  is  undeniable,  and  it  clearly  forms  a  thread 
of  connection  between  the  two  circles  of  mythology. 

When  the  real  meaning  of  a  myth  is  lost,  popular  fancy 
always  tries  to  construct  some  new  explanation.  Even  at  a  seat 
of  English  learning,  the  old  Germanic  Yuletide  custom  of  the 
Boar’s  Head  Dinner  —  originally  a  holy  supper  of  the  heathen 
Teutons  —  is  interpreted  now  as  a  festive  commemoration  of  the 
miraculous  escape  of  an  Oxford  student  from  the  tusks  of  a 
bristly  quadruped.  Nothing  can  be  made  out  more  clearly  than 
that  the  banquet  in  question  is  the  remnant  of  a  sacrificial  cere¬ 
mony  once  held  in  honor  of  Fro,  or  Freyr,  the  god  of  Light, 
whose  symbol  and  sacred  animal  was  the  sun  boar,  and  who  was 
pre-eminently  worshiped  at  the  winter  solstice.  But  how  few 
there  are,  even  among  the  most  learned,  who  know  this  simple 
fact,  or  who  have  ever  been  startled  by  the  palpable  impossibility 
of  the  modernizing  explanation  of  the  Boar’s  Head  Dinner! 

We  cannot  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  restless  chasing  of  the 
Wild  Huntsman  —  though  he  still  bears  here  and  there  the  name 
of  Wotn,  or  Wodan,  and  though  he  be  replaced  in  other  districts 
by  a  Wild  Huntress,  who  is  called  after  one  of  the  names  of 
Wodan’s  consort  —  should  be  explained  now  as  the  expiation  of 
the  crime  of  hunting  on  a  Sunday,  committed  by  some  nobleman 
or  squire  in  defiance  of  the  orders  of  the  Church.  The  details 
of  this  Christianizing  explanation  vary  in  every  locality.  Men 
are  always  ready  to  explain,  offhand,  that  which  they  do  not  under¬ 
stand  in  the  least.  Yet  the  great  heathen  Germanic  traits  of  the 
Wild  Chase  are  preserved  without  change  in  places  lying  far 
asunder.  In  the  same  way  there  has  been  a  Boar’s  Head  Din¬ 
ner,  until  a  comparatively  recent  time,  in  more  places  than  one  in 
England;  and  at  Court  there  is  still,  at  Christmas,  a  diminished 
survival  of  the  custom.  But  only  at  Oxford  the  impossible  story 
of  the  student  is  told. 


KARL  BLIND 


5°3 


So,  also,  there  are  different  tales  accounting1  for  the  peregrina¬ 
tions  of  that  mythic  figure  which  is  variously  known  as  the  horse  - 
flesh-eating  Eternal  Hunter  who  insulted  Christ,  as  the  Pilgrim 
from  Rome,  as  Pilatus  the  Wanderer,  as  the  hill-enchanted  and 
forest-haunting  Jew,  as  Ahasver,  Buttadeus,  and  so  forth.  But 
again,  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  Restless  Wanderer  remain 
everywhere  the  same;  and  in  not  a  few  districts  this  form  is  in¬ 
extricably  mixed  up  with  that  of  the  Wild  Huntsman,  who  also 
dwells  in  a  hill  and  haunts  a  forest,  and  whose  Wodan  or  Godan 
name  may  in  Germany  have  facilitated  the  transition  to  a  Jude. 

When  we  keep  these  things  in  mind,  we  shall  see  how  useful 
it  is  to  study  the  creed  of  our  forefathers  as  a  means  of  dispel¬ 
ling  the  dark  shadows  of  present  bigotry.  Such  fuller  knowledge 
of  a  collapsed  circle  of  ideas  which  often  show  so  remarkable  a 
contact  with  the  Vedic  religion  enables  us  to  enjoy,  as  a  weird 
poetical  conception,  that  which  otherwise  would  only  strike  us  as 
the  superstition  of  a  contemptible  religious  fanaticism.  For  all 
times  to  come,  a  Great  Breath,  a  Mahan  Atma ,  will  rustle  through 
the  leaves,  rage  across  hill  and  dale,  and  stir  river  and  sea  with 
mighty  motion.  In  so  far,  there  will  never  be  a  lack  of  an  Eter¬ 
nal  Wanderer.  If  we  understand  the  myth  in  this  natural  sense, 
a  curse  will  be  removed;  a  feeling  of  relief  will  be  created  in 
bosoms  yet  heavily  burdened  with  prejudices;  and  evidence  will 
have  been  furnished  that  a  grain  of  sense,  however  laid  with 
absurdities,  is  often  to  be  found  in  cruel  fancies  in  which  the 
human  mind  seems  to  have  gone  most  wildly  astray. 


5°4 


ANICIUS  MANLIUS  SEVERINUS  BOETHIUS 

(c.  475-525  A.  D.) 

he  great  work  of  Boethius, —  his  tt  Consolations  of  Philosophy, » 
—  was  the  last  product  of  Roman  civilization.  It  was  writ¬ 
ten  after  the  Goths  had  conquered  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
it  is  possible  that  if  Boethius  had  not  been  imprisoned  by  Theodoric, 
the  Ostrogoth,  it  might  never  have  been  written  at  all, —  for  it  is 
said  that  he  wrote  it  in  prison  at  Pavia.  He  was  born  at  Rome  475 
A.  D.  (conjecturally).  His  father  was  consul  in  487  A.  D.,  and  in  510 
Boethius  himself  succeeded  to  the  office  which  brought  him  close  to 
Theodoric,  the  Ostrogoth.  For  a  time  Theodoric  held  him  in  high 
favor,  but  afterwards  suspected  him  of  treason  and  sent  him  to  prison 
in  Pavia,  where  he  was  put  to  death  525  A.  D.  Besides  his  <(  Conso¬ 
lations  of  Philosophy })  and  his  tt  Meters, ®  which  were  translated  by 
Alfred  the  Great,  he  wrote  on  Music,  Mathematics,  and  Logic.  His 
miscellaneous  essays  on  such  topics  were  held  in  high  favor  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  he  is  remembered  now  almost  wholly  by  his 
<(  Consolations  of  Philosophy, ®  —  the  work  which  made  him,  in  Gib¬ 
bon’s  estimation,  <(  the  last  Roman  whom  Cato  or  Tully  could  have 
acknowledged  as  a  countryman. » 


WHAT  IS  THE  HIGHEST  HAPPINESS? 


When  Wisdom  had  sung  this  lay  he  ceased  the  song  and  was 
silent  awhile.  Then  he  began  to  think  deeply  in  his 
mind’s  thought,  and  spoke  thus:  Every  mortal  man  troubles 
himself  with  various  and  manifold  anxieties,  and  yet  all  desire, 
through  various  paths,  to  come  to  one  end;  that  is,  they  desire, 
by  different  means,  to  arrive  at  one  happiness;  that  is,  to  know 
God!  He  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  every  good,  and  he  is 
the  highest  happiness. 

Then  said  the  Mind:  This,  methinks,  must  be  the  highest 
good,  so  that  man  should  need  no  other  good,  nor  moreover  be 
solicitous  beyond  that, —  since  he  possesses  that  which  is  the  roof 
of  all  other  goods;  for  it  includes  all  other  goods,  and  has  all  of 
them  within  it.  It  would  not  be  the  highest  good,  if  any  good 


ANICIUS  MANLIUS  SEVERINUS  BOETHIUS 


5°5 


were  externa!  to  it,  because  it  would  then  have  to  desire  some 
good  which  itself  had  not. 

Then  answered  Reason,  and  said:  It  is  very  evident  that  this 
is  the  highest  happiness,  for  it  is  both  the  roof  and  floor  of  all 
good.  What  is  that,  then,  but  the  best  happiness,  which  gathers 
the  other  felicities  all  within  it,  and  includes,  and  holds  them 
within  it;  and  to  it  there  is  a  deficiency  of  none,  neither  has  it 
need  of  any;  but  they  all  come  from  it,  and  again  all  return  to 
it;  as  all  waters  come  from  the  sea,  and  again  all  come  to  the 
sea  ?  There  is  none  in  the  little  fountain  which  does  not  seek 
the  sea,  and  again,  from  the  sea  it  arrives  at  the  earth,  and  so 
it  flows  gradually  through  the  earth,  till  it  again  comes  to  the 
same  fountain  that  it  before  flowed  from,  and  so  again  to  the  sea. 

Now  this  is  an  example  of  the  true  goods,  which  all  mortal 
men  desire  to  obtain,  though  they  by  various  ways  think  to 
arrive  at  them.  For  every  man  has  natural  good  in  himself, 
because  every  man  desires  to  obtain  the  true  good;  but  it  is 
hindered  by  the  transitory  goods,  because  it  is  more  prone 
thereto.  For  some  men  think  that  it  is  the  best  happiness  that 
a  man  be  so  rich  that  he  have  need  of  nothing  more;  and  they 
choose  life  accordingly.  Some  men  think  that  this  is  the  highest 
good,  that  he  be  among  his  fellows  the  most  honorable  of  his 
fellows,  and  they  with  all  energy  seek  this.  Some  think  that  the 
supreme  good  is  in  the  highest  power.  These  desire,  either  for 
themselves  to  rule,  or  else  to  associate  themselves  in  friendship 
with  their  rulers.  Some  persuade  themselves  that  it  is  best  that 
a  man  be  illustrious  and  celebrated,  and  have  good  fame;  they 
therefore  seek  this  both  in  peace  and  in  war.  Many  reckon  it 
for  the  greatest  good  and  for  the  greatest  happiness,  that  a  man 
be  always  blithe  in  this  present  life,  and  fulfill  all  his  lusts. 
Some,  indeed,  who  desire  these  riches,  are  desirous  thereof,  be¬ 
cause  they  would  have  the  greater  power,  that  they  may  the 
more  securely  enjoy  these  worldly  lusts,  and  also  the  riches. 
Many  there  are  of  those  who  desire  power  because  they  would 
gather  overmuch  money;  or,  again,  they  are  desirous  to  spread 
the  celebrity  of  their  name. 

On  account  of  such  and  other  like  frail  and  perishable  advan¬ 
tages,  the  thought  of  every  human  mind  is  troubled  with  solici¬ 
tude  and  with  anxiety.  It  then  imagines  that  it  has  obtained 
some  exalted  good  when  it  has  won  the  flattery  of  the  people; 
and  methinks  that  it  has  bought  a  very  false  greatness.  Some 


506  ANICIUS  MANLIUS  SEVERINUS  BOETHIUS 

with  much  anxiety  seek  wives,  that  thereby  they  may,  above  all 
things,  have  children,  and  also  live  happily.  True  friends,  then, 
I  say,  are  the  most  precious  things  of  all  these  worldly  felicities. 
They  are  not,  indeed,  to  be  reckoned  as  worldly  goods,  but  as 
divine;  for  deceitful  fortune  does  not  produce  them,  but  God, 
who  naturally  formed  them  as  relations.  For  of  every  other  thing 
in  this  world  man  is  desirous,  either  that  he  may  through  it  at¬ 
tain  to  power,  or  else  some  worldly  lust;  except  of  the  true 
friend,  whom  he  loves  sometimes  for  affection  and  for  fidelity, 
though  he  expect  to  himself  no  other  rewards.  Nature  joins  and 
cements  friends  together  with  inseparable  love.  But  with  these 
worldly  goods,  and  with  this  present  wealth,  men  make  oftener 
enemies  than  friends.  By  these  and  by  many  such  things  it  may 
be  evident  to  all  men,  that  all  the  bodily  goods  are  inferior  to 
the  faculties  of  the  soul.  We  indeed  think  that  a  man  is  the 
stronger,  because  he  is  great  in  his  body.  The  fairness  more¬ 
over,  and  the  vigor  of  the  body,  rejoices  and  delights  the  man, 
and  health  makes  him  cheerful.  In  all  these  bodily  felicities, 
men  seek  simple  happiness,  as  it  seems  to  them.  For  whatsoever 
every  man  chiefly  loves  above  all  other  things,  that  he  persuades 
himself  is  best  for  him,  and  that  is  his  highest  good.  When, 
therefore,  he  has  acquired  that,  he  imagines  that  he  may  be  very 
happy.  I  do  not  deny  that  these  goods  and  this  happiness  are 
the  highest  good  of  this  present  life.  For  every  man  considers 
that  thing  best  which  he  chiefly  loves  above  other  things;  and 
therefore  he  persuades  himself  that  he  is  very  happy  if  he  can 
obtain  what  he  then  most  desires.  Is  not  now  clearly  enough 
shown  to  thee  the  form  of  the  false  goods,  that  is,  then,  posses¬ 
sions,  dignity,  and  power,  and  glory,  and  pleasure  ?  Concerning 
pleasure,  Epicurus  the  philosopher  said,  when  he  inquired  con¬ 
cerning  all  those  other  goods,  which  we  before  mentioned;  then 
said  he  that  pleasure  was  the  highest  good,  because  all  the  other 
goods  which  we  before  mentioned  gratify  the  mind  and  delight 
it,  but  pleasure  alone  chiefly  gratifies  the  body. 

But  we  will  still  speak  concerning  the  nature  of  men,  and 
concerning  their  pursuits.  Though,  then,  their  mind  and  their 
nature  be  now  dimmed,  and  they  are  by  that  fall  sunk  down  to 
evil,  and  thither  inclined,  yet  they  are  desirous,  so  far  as  they 
can  and  may,  of  the  highest  good.  As  a  drunken  man  knows 
that  he  should  go  to  his  house  and  to  his  rest,  and  yet  is  not 
able  to  find  the  way  thither,  so  is  it  also  with  the  mind  when  it 


ANICIUS  MANLIUS  SEVERINUS  BOETHIUS  507 

is  weighed  down  by  the  anxieties  of  this  world.  It  is  sometimes 
intoxicated  and  misled  by  them,  so  far  that  it  cannot  rightly 
find  out  good.  Nor  yet  does  it  appear  to  those  men  that  they 
at  all  err,  who  are  desirous  to  obtain  this,  that  they  need  labor 
after  nothing  more.  But  they  think  that  they  are  able  to  collect 
together  all  these  goods,  so  that  none  may  be  excluded  from  the 
number.  They  therefore  know  no  other  good  than  the  collecting 
of  all  the  most  precious  things  into  their  power  that  they  may 
have  need  of  nothing  besides  them.  But  there  is  no  one  that 
has  not  need  of  some  addition,  except  God  alone.  He  has  of  his 
own  enough,  nor  has  he  need  of  anything  but  that  which  he  has 
in  himself.  Dost  thou  think,  however,  that  they  foolishly  imagine 
that  that  thing  is  best  deserving  of  all  estimation  which  they 
may  consider  most  desirable  ?  No,  no.  I  know  that  it  is  not  to 
be  despised.  How  can  that  be  evil  which  the  mind  of  every 
man  considers  to  be  good,  and  strives  after,  and  desires  to  ob¬ 
tain  ?  No,  it  is  not  evil;  it  is  the  highest  good.  Why  is  not 
power  to  be  reckoned  one  of  the  highest  goods  of  this  present 
life  ?  Is  that  to  be  esteemed  vain  and  useless,  which  is  the  most 
useful  of  all  those  worldly  things,  that  is,  power  ?  Is  good  fame 
and  renown  to  be  accounted  nothing  ?  No,  no.  It  is  not  fit 
that  any  one  account  it  nothing;  for  every  man  thinks  that  best 
which  he  most  loves.  Do  we  not  know  that  no  anxiety,  or  diffi¬ 
culties,  or  trouble,  or  pain,  or  sorrow,  is  happiness  ?  What  more, 
then,  need  we  say  about  these  felicities  ?  Does  not  every  man 
know  what  they  are,  and  also  know  that  they  are  the  highest 
good  ?  And  yet  almost  every  man  seeks  in  very  little  things  the 
best  felicities;  because  he  thinks  that  he  may  have  them  all  if  he 
have  that  which  he  then  chiefly  wishes  to  obtain.  This  is,  then, 
what  they  chiefly  wish  to  obtain,  wealth,  and  dignity,  and  au¬ 
thority,  and  this  world’s  glory,  and  ostentation,  and  worldly  lust. 
Of  all  this  they  are  desirous  because  they  think  that,  through 
these  things,  they  may  obtain  that  there  be  not  to  them  a  de¬ 
ficiency  of  anything  wished;  neither  of  dignity,  nor  of  power,  nor 
of  renown,  nor  of  bliss.  They  wish  for  all  this,  and  they  do 
well  that  they  desire  it,  though  they  seek  it  variously.  By  these 
things  we  may  clearly  perceive  that  every  man  is  desirous  of 
this,  that  he  may  obtain  the  highest  good,  if  they  were  able  to 
discover  it,  or  knew  how  to  seek  it  rightly.  But  they  do  not 
seek  it  in  the  most  right  way.  It  is  not  of  this  world. 

Modernized  from  the  version  of 
Alfred  the  Great. 


5°8 


JACOB  BOHME 

(1575-1624) 

egel  says  that  philosophy  came  first  to  Germany  through 
Jacob  Bohme.  the  once  celebrated  mystic,  almost  forgotten 
now  by  the  general  reader,  but  long  known  as  (<  Philosophus 
Teutonicus, the  Teutonic  Philosopher  par  excellence.  He  was  born  at 
Altseidenberg,  a  village  of  Upper  Lusatia,  where  he  began  life  as  a 
shoemaker.  His  writings  which  have  greatly  influenced  metaphysics 
belong  to  the  same  school  as  those  of  Swedenborg.  It  is  said  that 
Bohme  was  himself  influenced  by  the  writings  of  Paracelsus.  As  far 
as  his  teaching  can  be  compressed  into  an  intelligible  English  sen¬ 
tence,  it  is  that  the  material  world  is  a  manifestation  of  the  spiritual. 
In  this  his  philosophy  is  the  precursor  of  that  of  Berkeley.  He  died 
in  1624. 


PARADISE 


Moses  says  that  when  God  had  made  man,  he  planted  a  garden 
in  Eden,  and  there  he  put  man,  to  till  and  keep  the  same; 
and  caused  all  manner  of  fruits  to  grow,  pleasant  for  the 
sight  and  good  for  food;  and  planted  the  tree  of  life  also,  and 
the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  in  the  midst. 

Here  lies  the  veil  before  the  face  of  Moses,  in  that  he  had  2 
bright  shining  countenance,  that  sinful  Israel  cannot  look  him  in 
the  face;  for  the  man  of  vanity  is  not  worthy  to  know  what 
Paradise  is;  and  albeit  it  be  given  us  to  know  it  according  to 
the  inward,  hidden  man,  yet  by  this  description  we  shall  remain 
as  dumb  to  the  beast,  but  yet  be  sufficiently  understood  by  our 
fellow-scholars  in  the  school  of  the  great  master. 

Poor  reason,  which  is  gone  forth  with  Adam  out  of  Paradise, 
asks  where  is  Paradise  to  be  had  or  found  ?  Is  it  far  off  or 
near  ?  Or,  when  the  souls  go  into  Paradise,  whither  do  they  go  ? 
Is  it  in  the  place  of  this  world,  without  the  place  of  this  world, 
above  the  stars  ?  Where  is  it  that  God  dwells  with  the  angels  ? 
And  where  is  that  desirable  native  country  where  there  is  no 
death  ?  Being  there  is  no  sun  or  stars  in  it,  therefore  it  cannot 
be  in  this  world,  or  else  it  would  have  been  found  long  ago. 


JACOB  BOHME 


5°9 

Beloved  reason;  one  cannot  lend  a  key  to  another  to  unlock 
this  withal;  and  if  any  have  a  key,  he  cannot  open  it  to  another, 
as  antichrist  boasts  that  he  has  the  keys  of  heaven  and  hell;  it 
is  true,  a  man  may  have  the  keys  of  both  in  this  lifetime,  but 
he  cannot  open  with  them  for  anybody  else ;  every  one  must 
unlock  it  with  his  own  key,  or  else  he  cannot  enter  therein;  for 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  key,  and  when  any  one  has  that  key,  then 
he  may  go  both  in  and  out. 

Paradise  was  the  heavenly  essentiality  of  the  second  principle. 
It  budded  in  the  beginning  of  the  world  through  the  earthly 
essentiality,  as  the  eternity  is  in  the  time,  and  the  divine  power 
is  through  all  things;  and  yet  is  neither  comprehended  nor  under¬ 
stood  of  any  earthly  thing  in  selfhood. 

In  Paradise  the  essence  of  the  divine  world  penetrated  the 
essence  of  time,  as  the  sun  penetrates  the  fruit  upon  a  tree,  and 
effectually  works  in  it  a  pleasantness,  that  it  is  lovely  to  look 
upon  and  good  to  eat;  the  like  we  are  to  understand  of  the  gar¬ 
den  of  Eden. 

The  garden  of  Eden  was  a  place  upon  the  earth  where  man 
was  tempted;  and  the  Paradise  was  in  heaven,  yet  was  in  the 
garden  of  Eden ;  for  as  Adam  before  his  sleep,  and  before  his  Eve 
was  made  out  of  him,  was,  as  to  his  inward  man,  in  heaven,  and, 
as  to  the  outward,  upon  the  earth,  —  and  as  the  inward,  holy  man 
penetrated  the  outward,  as  a  fire  through  heats  an  iron,  so  also 
the  heavenly  power  out  of  the  pure,  eternal  element  penetrated 
the  four  elements,  and  sprang  through  the  earth,  and  bare  fruits, 
which  were  heavenly  and  earthly,  and  were  qualified,  sweetly 
tempered  of  the  divine  power,  and  the  vanity  in  the  fruit  was 
held  as  it  were  swallowed  up,  as  the  day  hides  the  night,  and 
holds  it  captive  in  itself,  that  it  is  not  known  and  manifest. 

The  whole  world  would  have  been  a  mere  Paradise  if  Lucifer 
had  not  corrupted  it,  who  was  in  the  beginning  of  his  creation 
an  hierarch  in  the  place  of  this  world ;  but  seeing  God  knew 
that  Adam  would  fall,  therefore  Paradise  sprang  forth  and  budded 
only  in  one  certain  place,  to  introduce  and  confirm  man  in  his 
obedience  therein.  God  nevertheless  saw  he  would  depart  thence, 
whom  he  would  again  introduce  thereinto  by  Christ,  and  establish 
him  anew  in  Christ  to  eternity  in  Paradise. 

There  is  nothing  that  is  nearer  you  than  heaven,  Paradise,  and 
hell;  unto  which  of  them  you  are  inclined,  and  to  which  of  them 
you  tend  or  walk,  to  that  in  this  lifetime  you  are  most  near. 


JACOB  BOHME 


5  10 

You  are  between  both;  and  there  is  a  birth  between  each  of 
them.  You  stand  in  this  world  between  both  the  gates,  and  you 
have  both  the  births  in  you.  God  beckons  to  you  in  one  gate, 
and  calls  you;  the  devil  beckons  you  in  the  other  gate  and  calls 
you;  with  whom  you  go,  with  him  you  enter  in.  The  devil  has 
in  his  hand  power,  honor,  pleasure,  and  worldly  joy;  and  the 
root  of  these  is  death  and  hell  fire.  On  the  contrary,  God  has 
in  his  hand  crosses,  persecution,  misery,  poverty,  ignominy,  and 
sorrow;  and  the  root  of  these  is  a  fire  also,  but  in  the  fire  there 
is  a  light,  and  in  the  light  the  virtue,  and  in  the  virtue  the  Para¬ 
dise;  and  in  the  Paradise  are  the  angels,  and  among  the  angels, 
joy.  The  gross  fleshly  eyes  cannot  behold  it,  because  they  are 
from  the  third  principle,  and  see  only  by  the  splendor  of  the 
sun;  but  when  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  into  the  soul,  then  he 
regenerates  it  anew  in  God,  and  then  it  becomes  a  paradisical 
child,  who  gets  the  key  of  Paradise,  and  that  soul  sees  into  the 
midst  thereof. 

But  the  gross  body  cannot  see  into  it,  because  it  belongs  not 
to  Paradise;  it  belongs  to  the  earth,  and  must  putrify  and  rot, 
and  rise  in  a  new  virtue  and  power  in  Christ,  at  the  end  of 
days;  and  then  it  may  also  be  in  Paradise,  and  not  before;  it 
must  lay  off  the  third  principle,  namely,  this  skin  or  covering 
which  father  Adam  and  mother  Eve  got  into,  and  in  which  they 
supposed  they  should  be  wise  by  wearing  all  the  three  principles 
manifested  on  them.  Oh!  that  they  had  preferred  the  wearing 
two  of  the  principles  hidden  in  them,  and  had  continued  in  the 
principle  of  light,  it  had  been  good  for  us.  But  of  this  I  pur¬ 
pose  to  speak  hereafter  when  I  treat  about  the  fall. 

Thus  now  in  the  essence  of  all  essences,  there  are  three  sev¬ 
eral  distinct  properties,  with  one  source  or  property  far  from  one 
another,  yet  not  parted  asunder,  but  are  in  one  another  as  one  only 
essence;  nevertheless,  the  one  does  not  comprehend  the  other,  as 
in  the  three  elements,  fire,  air,  water;  all  three  are  in  one  an¬ 
other,  but  neither  of  them  comprehend  the  other.  And  as  one 
element  generates  another  and  yet  is  not  of  the  essence,  source, 
or  property  thereof,  so  the  three  principles  are  in  one  another, 
and  one  generates  the  other;  and  yet  none  of  them  all  compre¬ 
hends  the  other,  nor  is  any  of  them  the  essence  or  substance  of 
the  other. 

The  third  principle,  namely,  this  material  world,  shall  pass 
away  and  go  into  its  ether,  and  then  the  shadow  of  all  creatures 


JACOB  BOHME 


5  1 1 


shall  remain,  also  of  all  growing  things  [vegetables  and  fruits] 
and  of  all  that  ever  came  to  light;  as  also  the  shadow  and  figure 
of  all  words  and  works;  and  that  incomprehensibly,  like  a  nothing 
or  shadow  in  respect  of  the  light,  and  after  the  end  of  time  there 
will  be  nothing  but  light  and  darkness;  where  the  source  or 
property  remain  in  each  of  them  as  it  has  been  from  eternity, 
and  the  one  shall  not  comprehend  the  other. 

Yet  whether  God  will  create  more  after  this  world’s  time,  that 
my  spirit  doth  not  know;  for  it  apprehends  no  further  than  what 
is  in  its  centre  wherein  it  lives,  and  in  which  the  Paradise  and 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  stand. 


THE  SUPERSENSUAL  LIFE 


he  Disciple  said  to  the  Master:  How  may  I  attain  to  the 


1  supersensual  life,  that  I  may  see  God  and  hear  him  speak  ? 

The  Master  said:  If  thou  canst  raise  thyself  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  thither,  where  no  creature  dwelleth,  thou  shalt  hear  what 
God  saith. 

The  Disciple  said :  Is  that  near  or  far  ? 

The  Master  said:  It  is  in  thee,  and  if  thou  canst  be  silent 
and  cease,  for  an  hour,  from  all  thy  willing  and  brooding,  thou 
shalt  hear  unspeakable  words  of  God. 

The  Disciple  said:  How  may  I  hear,  if  I  cease  from  all  will¬ 
ing  and  brooding  ? 

The  Master  said:  If  thou  wilt  cease  from  all  brooding  and 
willing  of  thine  own,  then  the  eternal  Hearing  and  Seeing  and 
Speaking  shall  be  revealed  in  thee,  and  shall  discern  God  through 
thee.  Thine  own  hearing  and  willing  and  seeing  hinders  thee, 
that  thou  canst  not  see  nor  hear  God. 

The  Disciple  said:  Wherewith  shall  I  hear  and  see  God,  see¬ 
ing  he  is  above  nature  and  the  creature  ? 

The  Master  said:  If  thou  keepest  silence,  thou  art  what  God 
was  before  nature  and  the  creature,  and  out  of  which  he  made 
thy  nature  and  creature.  Then  shalt  thou  hear  and  see  with 
that  wherewith  God,  in  thee,  saw  and  heard,  before  thine  own 
willing  and  seeing  and  hearing  did  begin. 

The  Disciple  said:  What  doth  hinder  me  that  I  cannot  attain 
thereunto  ? 

The  Master  said:  Thine  own  willing  and  hearing  and  seeing, 
and  because  thou  dost  strive  against  that  whence  thou  hast  pro- 


512 


JACOB  BOHME 


ceeded.  With  thine  own  will  thou  separatest  thyself  from  God’s 
willing,  and  with  thine  own  seeing  thou  seest  only  in  thy  will¬ 
ing.  And  thy  willing  stoppeth  thine  hearing  with  the  obstinate 
concupiscence  of  earthly,  natural  things,  and  leadeth  thee  into  a 
pit,  and  overshadoweth  thee  with  that  which  thou  desirest,  so 
that  thou  canst  not  attain  to  the  supernatural,  and  supersensual. 

The  Disciple  said:  Seeing  I  am  in  nature,  how  can  I  pass 
through  nature  into  the  supersensual  deep,  without  destroying 
nature  ? 

The  Master  said:  To  that  end  three  things  are  requisite. 
The  first  is,  that  thou  shouldst  surrender  thy  will  unto  God  and 
let  thyself  down  into  the  deeps  of  his  mercy.  The  second  is, 
that  thou  shouldst  hate  thine  own  will,  and  not  do  that  where- 
unto  thy  will  impelleth  thee.  The  third  is,  that  thou  shouldst 
bring  thyself  into  subjection  to  the  Cross,  that  thou  mayest  be 
able  to  bear  the  assaults  of  nature  and  creature.  If  thou  doest 
this,  God  will  in-speak  into  thee,  and  will  lead  thy  passive  will 
into  himself, — into  the  supernatural  deep,  and  thou  shalt  hear 
what  the  Lord  speaketh  in  thee. 

The  Disciple  said:  It  were  necessary  that  I  should  quit  the 
world  and  my  life,  in  order  to  do  this. 

The  Master  said:  If  thou  leave  the  world,  thou  wilt  come  into 
that  whereof  the  world  is  made.  And  if  thou  losest  thy  life,  and 
comest  into  impotence  of  thine  own  faculty,  then  shall  thy  life 
be  in  that,  for  the  sake  of  which  thou  didst  leave  thy  life,  —  that 
is  in  God,  whence  it  came  into  the  body. 

The  Disciple  said:  God  has  created  man  in  the  life  of  nature, 
that  he  may  have  dominion  over  all  creatures  upon  the  earth, 
and  be  lord  of  everything  in  this  world.  Therefore,  surely,  he 
ought  to  possess  it  for  his  own. 

The  Master  said:  If,  in  the  outward  alone,  thou  governest  all 
animals,  then  thou  art  with  thy  will  and  thy  government  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  manner  of  beasts,  and  exercisest  only  a  symbolical 
and  perishable  dominion,  and  bringest  thy  desire  into  the  beastly 
Essence  wherewith  thou  wilt  become  infected  and  entangled,  and 
acquire  the  nature  of  a  beast.  But  if  thou  hast  left  the  symbol¬ 
ical  way,  thou  shalt  stand  in  the  supersymbolical  and  shalt  reign 
over  all  creatures,  in  the  ground  out  of  which  they  were  created. 
And  then  nothing  upon  earth  shall  harm  thee,  for  thou  wilt  have 
relations  with  all  things,  and  nothing  will  be  foreign  from  thee. 


5 l3 


LORD  BOL1NGBROKE 

(Henry  St.  John,  Viscount  Bolingbroke) 

(1678-1751) 

enry  St.  John,  first  Viscount  Bolingbroke,  was  born  in  Lon¬ 
don,  October  1st,  1678.  His  father,  Sir  Henry  St.  John,  set 
him  an  example  of  dissipated  living  and  in  his  earlier  life 
he  followed  it  at  the  expense  of  remarkable  talents  which  might 
otherwise  have  given  him  the  first  place  in  the  literature  of  his  age. 
He  was  the  intimate  of  Dryden  and  the  friend  of  Swift  and  Pope. 
His  prose  style  has  many  of  the  merits  of  the  best  masters  of  the 
time  of  Queen  Anne,  but  lacks  the  simplicity  of  Addison.  He  was 
greatly  celebrated  in  his  generation  as  an  orator,  but  none  of  his 
speeches  were  reported,  and  all  are  now  hopelessly  lost.  When  he 
entered  Parliament  in  1701  it  was  as  a  Tory,  and  he  soon  became  a 
leader  of  his  party,  serving  as  Secretary  of  War  and  of  State.  He 
was  created  Viscount  Bolingbroke  in  1714.  After  the  death  of  Queen 
Anne  he  opposed  the  succession  of  the  House  of  Hanover  and  fled  to 
France,  where  he  joined  the  Pretender.  In  1724  he  was  allowed  to 
return  to  England  where  he  co-operated  with  Wyndham  and  Pulteney 
against  the  Walpole  ministry.  His  essays  in  the  Craftsman  gave 
it  a  circulation  exceeding  that  of  the  Spectator,  but  they  were  on 
subjects  of  less  general  interest  and  the  Craftsman  is  now  forgotten. 

Bolingbroke  died  in  London,  December  12th,  1751,  and  his  works 
were  so  much  out  of  fashion  with  the  succeeding  generation  that  it 
was  asked,  <(  Who  now  reads  Bolingbroke  ? The  nineteenth  century 
has  been  more  just,  however,  and  his  best  works  have  been  repeat¬ 
edly  republished  in  popular  editions.  His  <(  Letters  on  the  Study  of 
History »  are  among  the  best  and  most  useful  of  his  essays. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY 

My  Lord:  — 

I  have  considered  formerly,  with  a  good  deal  of  attention,  the 
subject  on  which  you  command  me  to  communicate  my 
thoughts  to  you;  and  I  practiced  in  those  days,  as  much  as 
business  and  pleasure  allowed  me  time  to  do,  the  rules  that 
n— 33 


LORD  BOLINGBROKE 


5I4 

seemed  to  me  necessary  to  be  observed  in  the  study  of  his¬ 
tory.  They  were  very  different  from  those  which  writers  on 
the  same  subject  have  recommended,  and  which  are  commonly 
practiced.  But  I  confess  to  your  lordship  that  this  neither 
gave  me  then,  nor  has  given  me  since,  any  distrust  of  them. 
I  do  not  affect  singularity.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  that  a 
due  deference  is  to  be  paid  to  received  opinions,  and  that  a  due 
compliance  with  received  customs  is  to  be  held;  though  both 
the  one  and  the  other  should  be,  what  they  often  are,  absurd 
or  ridiculous.  But  this  servitude  is  outward  only,  and  abridges 
in  no  sort  the  liberty  of  private  judgment.  The  obligations  of 
submitting  to  it  likewise,  even  outwardly,  extend  no  further  than 
to  those  opinions  and  customs  which  cannot  be  opposed;  or  from 
which  we  cannot  deviate  without  doing  hurt,  or  giving  offense, 
to  society.  In  all  these  cases,  our  speculations  ought  to  be  free; 
in  all  other  cases,  our  practice  may  be  so.  Without  any  regard, 
therefore,  to  the  opinion  and  practice  even  of  the  learned  world, 
I  am  very  willing  to  tell  you  mine.  But  as  it  is  hard  to  recover 
a  thread  of  thought  long  ago  laid  aside,  and  impossible  to  prove 
some  things  and  explain  others,  without  the  assistance  of  many 
books  which  I  have  not  here,  your  lordship  must  be  content  with 

such  an  imperfect  sketch  as  I  am  able  to  send  you  in  this 

letter. 

The  motives  that  carry  men  to  the  study  of  history  are  dif¬ 
ferent.  Some  intend,  if  such  as  they  may  be  said  to  study, 
nothing  more  than  amusement,  and  read  the  life  of  Aristides  or 
Phocion,  of  Epaminondas  or  Scipio,  Alexander  or  Csesar,  just  as 
they  play  a  game  at  cards,  or  as  they  would  read  the  story  of 
the  seven  champions. 

Others  there  are  whose  motive  to  this  study  is  nothing  bet¬ 
ter,  and  who  have  the  further  disadvantage  of  becoming  a  nui¬ 
sance  very  often  to  society,  in  proportion  to  the  progress  they 

make.  The  former  do  not  improve  their  reading  to  any  good 

purpose;  the  latter  pervert  it  to  a  very  bad  one,  and  grow  in 
impertinence  as  they  increase  in  learning.  I  think  I  have  known 
most  of  the  first  kind  in  England,  and  most  of  the  last  in 
France.  The  persons  I  mean  are  those  who  read  to  talk,  to 
shine  in  conversation,  and  to  impose  in  company;  who,  having 
few  ideas  to  vend  of  their  own  growth,  store  their  minds  with 
crude  unruminated  facts  and  sentences,  and  hope  to  supply  by 
bare  memory  the  want  of  imagination  and  judgment. 


LORD  BOLINGBROKE 


5r5 


But  these  are  in  the  two  lowest  forms.  The  next  I  shall 
mention  are  in  one  a  little  higher;  in  the  form  of  those  who 
grow  neither  wiser  nor  better  by  study  themselves,  but  who  en¬ 
able  others  to  study  with  greater  ease,  and  to  purposes  more 
useful;  who  make  fair  copies  of  foul  manuscripts,  give  the  signifi¬ 
cation  of  hard  words,  and  take  a  great  deal  of  other  grammatical 
pains.  The  obligation  to  these  men  would  be  great  indeed,  if 
they  were  in  general  able  to  do  anything  better,  and  submitted 
to  this  drudgery  for  the  sake  of  the  public;  as  some  of  them,  it 
must  be  owned  with  gratitude,  have  done,  but  not  later,  I  think, 
than  about  the  time  of  the  resurrection  of  letters.  When  works 
of  importance  are  pressing,  generals  themselves  may  take  up  the 
pickax  and  the  spade ;  but  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things, 
when  that  pressing  necessity  is  over,  such  tools  are  left  in  the 
hands  destined  to  use  them,  the  hands  of  common  soldiers  and 
peasants.  I  approve,  therefore,  very  much  the  devotion  of  a  stu¬ 
dious  man  at  Christ  Church,  who  was  overheard  in  his  oratory 
entering  into  a  detail  with  God,  acknowledging  the  divine  good¬ 
ness  in  furnishing  the  world  with  makers  of  dictionaries!  These 
men  court  fame,  as  well  as  their  betters,  by  such  means  as  God 
has  given  them  to  acquire  it;  and  Littleton  exerted  all  the  ge¬ 
nius  he  had  when  he  made  a  dictionary,  though  Stephens  did  not. 
They  deserve  encouragement,  however,  whilst  they  continue  to 
compile,  and  neither  affect  wit,  nor  presume  to  reason. 

There  is  a  fourth  class,  of  much  less  use  than  these,  but  of 
much  greater  name.  Men  of  the  first  rank  in  learning,  and  to 
whom  the  whole  tribe  of  scholars  bow  with  reverence.  A  man 
must  be  as  indifferent  as  I  am  to  common  censure  or  approba¬ 
tion,  to  avow  a  thorough  contempt  for  the  whole  business  of  these 
learned  lives;  for  all  the  researches  into  antiquity,  for  all  the 
systems  of  chronology  and  history,  that  we  owe  to  the  immense 
labors  of  a  Scaliger,  a  Bochart,  a  Petavius,  an  Usher,  and  even  a 
Marsham.  The  same  materials  are  common  to  them  all;  but 
these  materials  are  few,  and  there  is  a  moral  impossibility  that 
they  should  ever  have  more.  They  have  combined  these  into 
every  form  that  can  be  given  to  them;  they  have  supposed,  they 
have  guessed,  they  have  joined  disjointed  passages  of  different 
authors,  and  broken  traditions  of  uncertain  originals,  of  various 
people,  and  of  centuries  remote  from  one  another  as  well  as 
from  ours.  In  short,  that  they  might  leave  no  liberty  untaken, 
even  a  wild  fantastical  similitude  of  sounds  has  served  to  prop  up 


5 1 6 


LORD  BOLINGBROKE 


a  system.  As  the  materials  they  have  are  few,  so  are  the  very 
best  and  such  as  pass  for  authentic  extremely  precarious,  as 
learned  persons  themselves  confess. 

Julius  Africanus,  Eusebius,  and  George  the  Monk  opened  the 
principal  sources  of  all  this  science ;  but  they  corrupted  the 
waters.  Their  point  of  view  was  to  make  profane  history  and 
chronology  agree  with  sacred.  For  this  purpose,  the  ancient 
monuments  that  these  writers  conveyed  to  posterity  were  digested 
by  them  according  to  the  system  they  were  to  maintain;  and 
none  of  these  monuments  were  delivered  down  in  their  original 
form  and  genuine  purity.  The  dynasties  of  Manetho,  for  instance, 
are  broken  to  pieces  by  Eusebius,  and  such  fragments  of  them  as 
suited  his  design  are  stuck  into  his  work.  We  have,  we  know, 
no  more  of  them.  The  <(  Codex  Alexandrinus  ®  we  owe  to  George 
the  Monk.  We  have  no  other  authority  for  it;  and  one  cannot 
see  without  amazement  such  a  man  as  Sir  John  Marsham  under¬ 
valuing  this  authority  in  one  page,  and  building  his  system  upon 
it  in  the  next.  He  seems  even  by  the  lightness  of  his  expres¬ 
sions,  if  I  remember  well,  for  it  is  long  since  I  looked  into  his 
canon,  not  to  be  much  concerned  what  foundation  his  system  had, 
so  he  showed  his  skill  in  forming  one,  and  in  reducing  the  im¬ 
mense  antiquity  of  the  Egyptians  within  the  limits  of  the  Hebraic 
calculation.  In  short,  my  lord,  all  these  systems  are  so  many  en¬ 
chanted  castles:  they  appear  to  be  something,  they  are  nothing 
but  appearances;  like  them  too,  dissolve  the  charm,  and  they  van¬ 
ish  from  the  sight.  To  dissolve  the  charm,  we  must  begin  at 
the  beginning  of  them;  the  expression  may  be  odd,  but  it  is 
significant.  "We  must  examine  scrupulously  and  indifferently  the 
foundations  on  which  they  lean;  and  when  we  find  these  either 
faintly  probable,  or  grossly  improbable,  it  would  be  foolish  to 
expect  anything  better  in  the  superstructure.  This  science  is  one 
of  those  that  are  a  limine  salutandce.  To  do  thus  much  may  be 
necessary,  that  grave  authority  may  not  impose  on  our  ignorance; 
to  do  more  would  be  to  assist  this  very  authority  in  imposing 
false  science  upon  us.  I  had  rather  take  the  Darius  whom  Alex¬ 
ander  conquered  for  the  son  of  Hystaspes,  and  make  as  many 
anachronisms  as  a  Jewish  chronologer,  than  sacrifice  half  my  life 
to  collect  all  the  learned  lumber  that  fills  the  head  of  an  anti¬ 
quary. 

Complete.  Introductory  letter  ((  On  the 
Study  of  History. » 


5*7 


BERNARD  BOSANQUET 


(1848-) 


^rof.  Bernard  Bosanquet,  president  of  the  London  School 
of  Ethics,  and  a  celebrated  essayist  on  ethical  subjects,  was 
born  in  1848.  His  father,  Rev.  R.  W.  Bosanquet,  of  Rock 
Hall,  Alnwick,  educated  him  at  Harrow  and  at  Oxford.  Between  1871 
and  1881,  he  delivered  at  University  College,  Oxford,  a  series  of  lec¬ 
tures  which  gave  him  an  international  reputation,  and  he  has  since 
increased  it  by  his  published  essays  and  addresses.  He  has  been 
active  in  University  Extension  work  in  London,  but  he  is  now  living 
in  retirement  in  Surry.  He  is  past  president  of  the  Aristotelean  So¬ 
ciety  of  Great  Britain.  An  original  thinker  of  remarkable  strength, 
he  knows  how  to  express  himself  with  a  clearness  which  reveals  the 
fundamental  simplicity  of  what  are  generally  considered  the  most 
difficult  subjects. 


THE  TRUE  CONCEPTION  OF  ANOTHER  WORLD 

«With  such  barren  forms  of  thought,  that  are  always  in  a  world  beyond, 
philosophy  has  nothing  to  do.  Its  object  is  always  something  concrete,  and 
in  the  highest  sense  present. )}  —  Hegel's  « Logic?  Wallace's  translation , 

p.  iso. 

It  will  surprise  many  readers  to  be  told  that  the  words  which 
I  have  quoted  above  embody  the  very  essence  of  Hegelian 
thought.  The  Infinite,  the  supra-sensuous,  the  Divine,  are  so 
connected  in  our  minds  with  futile  rackings  of  the  imagination 
about  remote  matters  which  only  distract  us  from  our  duties, 
that  a  philosophy  which  designates  its  problems  by  such  terms 
as  these  seems  self-condemned  as  cloudy  and  inane.  But,  all 
appearances  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  Hegel  is  faithful  to 
the  present  and  the  concrete.  In  the  study  of  his  philosophy  we 
are  always  dealing  with  human  experience.  (<  My  stress  lay,,) 
says  Mr.  Browning,  (<on  the  incidents  in  the  development  of  a 
soul;  little  else  is  worth  study. })  For  <(a  soul )}  read  <(  the  mind,** 
and  you  have  the  subject-matter  to  which  Hegel’s  eighteen  close- 
printed  volumes  are  devoted.  The  present  remarks  are  meant  to 


5  1 8  BERNARD  BOSANQUET 

insist  on  this  neglected  point  of  view.  I  wish  to  point  out  in  two 
or  three  salient  instances  the  transformation  undergone  by  specula¬ 
tive  notions  when  sedulously  applied  to  life,  and  restrained  from 
generating  an  empty  (<  beyond,  ®  or  other  world,  between  which 
and  our  present  life  and  knowledge  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed. 
That  the  world  of  mind,  or  the  world  above  sense,  exists  as  an 
actual  and  organized  whole,  is  a  truth  most  easily  realized  in  the 
study  of  the  beautiful.  And  to  grasp  this  principle  as  Hegel 
applies  it  is  nothing  less  than  to  acquire  a  new  contact  with 
spiritual  life.  The  spiritual  world  which  is  present,  actual,  and 
concrete,  contains  much  besides  beauty.  But  to  apprehend  one 
element  of  such  a  whole  must  of  course  demand  a  long  step 
towards  apprehending  the  rest.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  pro¬ 
pose  to  explain,  by  prominent  examples,  the  conception  of  a 
spiritual  world  which  is  present  and  actual,  in  order  to  make 
more  conceivable  Hegel’s  views  on  the  particular  sphere  of  art. 
So  closely  connected,  indeed,  are  all  the  embodiments  of  mind, 
his  <(  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art })  may  be  said  to  contain  the  essence 
of  his  entire  system. 

We  know  to  our  cost  the  popular  conception  of  the  supra- 
sensuous  world.  Whatever  that  world  is,  it  is,  as  commonly 
thought  of,  not  here  and  not  now.  That  is  to  say,  if  here  and 
now,  it  is  so  by  a  sort  of  miracle,  at  which  we  are  called  upon 
to  wonder,  as  when  angels  are  said  to  be  near  us,  or  the  dead  to 
know  what  we  do.  Again,  it  is  a  counterpart  of  our  present 
world,  and  rather  imperceptible  to  our  senses,  than  in  its  nature 
beyond  contact  with  sense  as  such.  It  is  peopled  by  persons 
who  live  eternally,  which  means  through  endless  ages,  and  to 
whose  actual  communion  with  us,  as  also  to  our  own  with  God, 
we  look  forward  in  the  future.  It  even,  perhaps,  contains  a 
supra-sensuous  original  corresponding  to  every  thing  and  move¬ 
ment  in  this  world  of  ours.  And  it  does  not  necessarily  deepen 
our  conception  of  life,  but  only  reduplicates  it. 

Such  a  world,  whatever  we  may  think  about  its  actual  exist¬ 
ence,  is  not  the  <(  other  world  })  of  philosophy.  The  (<  things  not 
seen yy  of  Plato  or  of  Hegel  are  not  a  double  or  a  projection  of 
the  existing  world.  Plato,  indeed,  wavered  between  the  two  con¬ 
ceptions  in  a  way  that  should  have  warned  his  interpreters  of 
the  divergence  in  his  track  of  thought.  But  in  Hegel,  at  least, 
there  is  no  ambiguity.  The  world  of  spirits  with  him  is  no 
world  of  ghosts.  When  we  study  the  embodiments  of  mind  or 


BERNARD  BOSANQUET 


5*9 


spirit  in  his  pages,  and  read  of  law,  property,  and  national  unity 
of  fine  art,  the  religious  community,  and  the  intellect  that  has 
attained  scientific  self-consciousness,  we  may  miss  our  other 
world  with  its  obscure  <(  beyond,  *  but  we  at  any  rate  feel  our¬ 
selves  to  be  dealing  with  something  real,  and  with  the  deepest 
concerns  of  life.  We  may  deny  to  such  matters  the  titles  which 
philosophy  bestows  upon  them;  we  may  say  that  this  is  no  <( other 
world, })  no  realm  of  spirits,  nothing  infinite  or  divine;  but  this 
matters  little  so  long  as  we  know  what  we  are  talking  about, 
and  are  talking  about  the  best  we  know.  And  what  v/e  discuss 
when  Hegel  is  our  guide  will  always  be  some  great  achievement 
or  essential  attribute  of  the  human  mind.  He  never  asks,  (<  Is 
it  ?  ®  but  always,  <(  What  is  it  ?  ®  and  therefore  has  instruction, 
drawn  from  experience,  even  for  those  to  whom  the  titles  of  his 
inquiries  seem  fraudulent  or  bombastic. 

These  few  remarks  are  not  directed  to  maintaining  any  thesis 
about  the  reality  of  nature  and  of  sense.  Their  object  is  to  en¬ 
force  a  distinction  which  falls  within  the  world  which  we  know, 
and  not  between  the  world  we  know  and  another  which  we  do 
not  know.  The  distinction  is  real,  and  governs  life.  I  am  not 
denying  any  other  distinction,  but  I  am  insisting  on  this.  No 
really  great  philosopher,  nor  religious  teacher, —  neither  Plato,  nor 
Kant,  nor  Saint  Paul, —  can  be  understood,  unless  we  grasp  this 
antithesis  in  the  right  way.  All  of  these  teachers  have  pointed 
men  to  another  world.  All  of  them,  perhaps,  were  led  at  times 
by  the  very  force  and  reality  of  their  own  thought  into  the  fatal 
separation  that  cancels  his  meaning.  So  strong  was  their  sense 
of  the  gulf  between  the  trifles  and  the  realities  of  life,  that  they 
gave  occasion  to  the  indolent  imagination  —  in  themselves  and  in 
others — to  transmute  this  gulf  from  a  measure  of  moral  effort 
into  an  inaccessibility  that  defies  apprehension.  But  their  pur¬ 
pose  was  to  overcome  this  inaccessibility,  not  to  heighten  it. 

The  hardest  of  all  lessons  in  interpretation  is  to  believe  that 
great  men  mean  what  they  say.  We  are  below  their  level,  and 
what  they  actually  say  seems  impossible  to  us,  till  we  have  adul¬ 
terated  it  to  suit  our  own  imbecility.  Especially  when  they  speak 
of  the  highest  realities  we  attach  our  notion  of  reality  to  what 
they  pronounce  to  be  real.  And  thus  we  baffle  every  attempt  to 
deepen  our  ideas  of  the  world  in  which  we  live.  The  work 
of  intelligence  is  hard;  that  of  the  senuous  fancy  is  eas}^;  and 
so  we  substitute  the  latter  for  the  former.  We  are  told,  for 


52° 


BERNARD  BOSANQUET 


instance,  by  Plato,  that  goodness,  beauty,  and  truth  are  realities, 
but  not  visible  or  tangible.  Instead  of  responding  to  the  call  so 
made  on  our  intelligence  by  scrutinizing  the  nature  and  conditions 
of  these  intellectual  facts, —  though  we  know  well  how  tardily 
they  are  produced  by  the  culture  of  the  ages, —  we  apply  forth¬ 
with  our  idea  of  reality  as  something  separate  in  space  and  time, 
and  so  “  refute  ®  Plato  with  ease,  and  remain  as  wise  as  we  were 
before.  And  it  is  true  that  Plato,  handling  ideas  of  vast  import 
with  the  mind  and  language  of  his  day,  sometimes  by  a  similar 
error  refutes  himself.  He  makes,  for  instance,  the  disembodied 
soul  see  the  invisible  ideas.  Thus  he  travesties  his  things  of  the 
mind  as  though  they  were  things  of  sense,  only  not  of  our  sense 
—  thereby  destroying  the  deeper  difference  of  kind  that  alone 
enables  them  to  find  a  place  in  our  world.  That  his  doctrine  of 
ideas  was  really  rooted,  not  in  mysticism,  but  in  scientific  en¬ 
thusiasm,  is  a  truth  that  is  veiled  from  us  partly  by  his  incon¬ 
sistencies,  but  far  more  by  our  own  erroneous  preconceptions. 

There  is,  however,  a  genuine  distinction  between  “this®  world 
and  the  “  other  ®  world,  which  is  merely  parodied  by  the  vulgar 
antitheses  between  natural  and  supernatural,  finite  and  infinite, 
phenomenal  and  noumenal.  We  sometimes  hear  it  said,  “  The 
world  is  quite  changed  to  me  since  I  knew  such  a  person,®  or 
“studied  such  a  subject,®  or  “had  suggested  to  me  such  an  idea.® 
The  expression  may  be  literally  true;  and  we  do  not  commonly 
exaggerate,  but  vastly  underrate  its  import.  We  read,  for  in¬ 
stance,  in  a  good  authority,  “  These  twenty  kinds  of  birds  (which 
Virgil  mentions)  do  not  correspond  so  much  to  our  species  as  to 
our  genera;  for  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  I  need  hardly  say,  had  only 
very  rough-and-ready  methods  of  classification,  just  as  is  the 
case  with  uneducated  people  at  the  present  day.®  Any  one  may 
verify  the  same  fact  as  regards  the  observation  of  flowers. 
Every  yellow  ranunculus  is  called  a  “buttercup,®  every  large 
white  umbellifer  a  “  hemlock.  ®  These,  with  hundreds  of  other 
differences  of  perception,  affect  the  surroundings  in  which  men 
consciously  live,  at  least  as  much  as  a  considerable  degree  of 
deafness  or  blindness.  It  is  no  metaphor,  but  literal  fact,  to  say 
that  man’s  whole  environment  is  transformed  by  the  training 
even  of  his  mere  apprehension  of  natural  objects.  But  there  is 
more  in  the  matter  than  this.  Without  going  into  metaphysics, 
which  I  wish  to  avoid,  I  cannot,  indeed,  maintain  that  mind 
*  makes  ®  natural  objects,  although  by  enabling  us  to  perceive 


BERNARD  BOSANOUET 

/V 


521 


them,  it  unquestionably  makes  our  immediate  conscious  world. 
My  individual  consciousness  does  not  make  or  create  the  differ¬ 
ences  between  the  species  of  ranunculus,  although  it  does  create 
my  knowledge  of  them.  But  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the 
world  of  morals,  or  art,  or  politics,  we  may  venture  much  further 
in  our  assertions.  The  actual  facts  of  this  world  do  directly 
arise  out  of  and  are  causally  sustained  by  conscious  intelligence; 
and  these  facts  form  the  world  above  sense.  The  unity  of  a 
Christian  church  or  congregation  is  a  governing  fact  of  life;  so 
is  that  of  a  family  or  a  nation;  so,  we  may  hope,  will  that  of 
humanity  come  to  be.  What  is  this  unity  ?  Is  it  visible  and 
tangible,  like  the  unity  of  a  human  body  ?  No,  the  unity  is 
*  ideal  * ;  that  is,  it  exists  in  the  medium  of  thought  only ;  it  is 

made  up  of  certain  sentiments,  purposes,  and  ideas.  What,  even 

of  an  army  ?  Here,  too,  an  ideal  unity  is  the  mainspring  of  ac¬ 
tion.  Without  mutual  intelligence  and  reciprocal  reliance  you 
may  have  a  mob,  but  you  cannot  have  an  army.  But  all  these 
conditions  exist  and  can  exist  in  the  mind  only.  An  army,  qua 
army  is  not  a  mere  fact  of  sense;  for  not  only  does  it  need 

mind  to  perceive  it, —  a  heap  of  sand  does  that, —  but  it  also 

needs  mind  to  make  it. 

The  world  of  these  governing  facts  of  life  is  the  world  of  the 
things  not  seen,  the  object  of  reason,  the  world  of  the  truly 
infinite  and  divine.  It  is,  of  course,  a  false  antithesis  to  con¬ 
trast  seeing  with  the  bodily  eye  and  seeing  with  the  mind’s  eye. 
The  seeing  eye  is  always  the  mind’s  eye.  The  distinction  be¬ 
tween  sense  and  spirit  or  intellect  is  a  distinction  within  the 
mind,  just  as  is  Saint  Paul’s  opposition  between  the  spirit  and 
the  flesh.  Nevertheless  the  mind  that  only  sees  color  —  sense  or 
sense-perception  —  is  different  from  the  mind  that  sees  beauty, 
the  self-conscious  spirit.  The  latter  includes  the  former,  but  the 
former  does  not  include  the  latter.  To  the  one  the  color  is 
the  ultimate  fact;  to  the  other  it  is  an  element  in  a  thing  of 
beauty.  This  relation  prevails  throughout  between  the  world  of 
sense  and  the  world  above  sense.  The  <(  things  not  seen,”  philo¬ 
sophically  speaking,  are  no  world  of  existences  or  of  intelligences 
co-ordinate  with  and  severed  from  this  present  world.  They  are 
a  value,  an  import,  a  significance,  superadded  to  the  phenomena1 
world,  which  may  thus  be  said,  though  with  some  risk  of  misun¬ 
derstanding,  to  be  degraded  into  a  symbol.  The  house,  the  ca¬ 
thedral,  the  judge’s  robe,  the  general’s  uniform,  are  ultimate 


522 


BERNARD  BOSANQUET 


facts  for  the  child  or  the  savage;  but  for  the  civilized  man  they 
are  symbols  of  domestic  life,  of  the  Church,  and  of  the  State. 
Even  where  the  supra-sensuous  world  has  its  purest  expression, 
in  the  knowledge  and  will  of  intelligent  beings,  it  presupposes  a 
sensuous  world  as  the  material  of  ideas  and  of  actions.  <(  This }) 
world  and  the  <(  other world  are  continuous  and  inseparable, 
and  all  men  must  live  in  some  degree  for  both. 


From  «  Essays  and  Addresses. »  Swan, 
Sonnesschein  &  Co. 


523 


PAUL  BOURGET 

(1852-) 

aul  Bourget,  essayist,  poet,  and  novelist,  was  born  at  Amiens, 
France,  September  2d,  1852.  His  father,  a  mathematician  of 
eminence,  was  rector  of  the  academies  of  Aix  and  Clere- 
mont.  Beginning  his  scholastic  education  under  his  father,  Bourget 
completed  it  at  the  College  St.  Barbe  in  Paris.  His  first  notable 
work  as  an  essayist  appeared  in  a  volume  of  (<  Essais  de  Psychologie 
Contemporaine,”  published  in  1883.  His  (<  Studies  and  Portraits  ”  ap¬ 
peared  in  1888  and  his  second  series  of  “Portraits”  in  1891.  These  had 
been  preceded  by  ®  La  Vie  Inquiete,”  a  volume  of  poems  published  in 
1874.  He  became  a  member  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  in  1885  and  of 
the  Academy  in  1894.  His  essay  on  <( Victor  Hugo”  appeared  first  in 
May,  1885,  immediately  after  the  announcement  of  Hugo’s  death. 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  VICTOR  HUGO 


Our  faculties  tyrannize  over  us.  We  feel  the  need  of  using 
them  as  a  child  does  of  moving  its  limbs  or  a  bird  of  un¬ 
folding  its  wings.  The  higher  gift  of  expression  imposed 
on  Victor  Hugo  an  irresistible  necessity  to  express  whatever 
floated  in  the  air  of  his  time.  He  made  himself,  instinctively, 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  ideas  of  his  generation.  This  does  not 
mean  that  he  has  voiced  in  his  verses  or  in  his  prose  all  the 
aspirations  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Among  those  which  es¬ 
caped  him  was  the  essential  one:  —  Science.  You  will  seek  in 
vain  in  his  work  a  trace  of  that  spirit  of  analysis  which  is  met 
with  in  such  a  high  degree  in  Stendhal  and  in  Balzac.  His 
intelligence,  marvelously  armed  for  the  burst  of  lyric  strength, 
was  powerless,  at  the  slow  task  of  anatomical  observation.  He 
defined  himself  with  a  striking  justice  when  he  represented  him¬ 
self  as  the  chord  of  an  aeolian  harp,  moved  at  the  slightest 
breath :  — 


(<  Set  in  the  centre  of  all  things,  with  a  tone  like  a  sonorous  echo.” 


524 


PAUL  BOURGET 


By  an  involuntary  submission  to  this  destiny,  he  was,  “from 
Ms  infancy  sublime,  ®  the  poet,  not  of  his  own  tortures,  like 
Henri  Heine  or  Musset,  but  of  the  passions  of  those  who  sur¬ 
rounded  him.  The  plaintive  voices  of  the  victims  of  the  Terror, 
still  heard  in  the  great  silence  of  the  Restoration,  passed  by  in 
bis  Odes.  Then  the  trumpet  crash  of  the  Napoleonic  victories 
reverberated  in  other  odes,  and  in  superb  strophes  the  appeal 
of  the  Hellenes.  He  was  later  on  to  give  entrance  into  his  soul 
the  tragic  cry  of  the  militant  democracy.  And  what  is  the 
*  Ldgende  des  Sihcles, the  masterpiece  among  his  masterpieces, 
if  it  is  not  the  echo  of  the  vast  clamor  of  human  history  ?  Even 
his  most  intimate  verses,  those  of  the  <(  Autumn  Leaves  *  and 
the  “Contemplations,”  have  something  almost  impersonal  by  vir¬ 
tue  of  the  simplicity  of  the  sentiments  expressed. 

It  seems  as  if  he  gathers  the  sigh  of  all  families  into  his 
verses  on  home,  the  inspiration  of  all  lovers  into  his  verses  on 
love.  What  there  is  individual  and  local  becomes  effaced,  and 
thus  it  is  that  even  in  the  elegies,  the  landscapes,  the  confidences, 
thanks  to  something,  I  know  not  what,  which  is  always  collect¬ 
ive  and  general,  the  poetry  of  Victor  Hugo  takes,  as  it  were,  the 
character  of  the  epic. 

Yes,  of  the  epic!  Such  is  the  natural  definition  of  this  poetry 
of  unbounded  extent,  of  grand  visions,  of  sublime  impersonal¬ 
ities!  We  may  even  follow  in  the  works  of  Hugo  the  action 
of  the  minds  by  which  this  epic  sensation  of  life  is  elaborated. 
Let  us  see,  for  instance,  what  is  the  attitude  of  the  creator  of 
Didier  and  of  Ruy  Bias  towards  that  personage,  so  frequent  in 
our  times,  who  is  called  “the  revolted  plebeian.”  We  have  in  the 
“  Confessions  ”  of  Rousseau,  in  “  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir  ”  of  Stend¬ 
hal,  in  the  “Jacques  Vingtras”  of  Jules  Valles,  monographs  of  dif¬ 
ferent  value  where  this  type  of  a  man  is  studied.  Compare 
these  sharp  analyses  with  the  two  sketches  of  heroes  delineated 
by  the  poet,  and  notice  the  metamorphosis  that  has  been  accom¬ 
plished.  After  having  analyzed  with  M.  Taine  the  psychology  of 
the  Jacobin,  open  “  Ninety-Three  ”  and  contemplate  the  face 
of  Cimourdain.  It  is  not  that  there  is  an  absolute  contradic¬ 
tion  between  the  works  of  the  analysts  and  the  works  of  Victor 
Hugo.  He  also  has  seen  the  deep  causes  which  form  the  base 
of  all  characters.  But  instead  of  showing  these  causes  with  all 
the  miseries  that  admit  of  an  individual  and  limited  existence,  he 
created  beings  larger  than  nature  and  in  so  far  symbolic  that  in 


PAUL  BOURGET 


525 


them  the  aspiration  or  suffering  of  an  entire  class  becomes  incar¬ 
nate.  Again,  the  poet  gives  expression  to  the  disturbance  cre¬ 
ated  by  what  is  unutterable,  among  the  thousands  tormented  by 
confused  desires.  There  is  a  religious  interpretation  of  the  Rev¬ 
olution  diffused  through  the  vague  dreams  of  many  Frenchmen. 
You  may  find  this  interpretation  rendered  with  the  most  astonishing 
eloquence  in  certain  pages  of  (<  Les  Miserables  ®  or  of  (<  Ninety - 
Three.  *  Therein  lies,  properly  speaking,  his  epic  power.  One  must 
not  search  elsewhere  for  the  cause  of  the  success  of  Victor  Hugo 
with  the  masses.  They  have  loved  in  him  the  great  writer  whose 
genius  vibrated  in  harmony  with  their  own.  They  felt  in  this 
faculty  of  the  epic  transformation  of  life  a  kind  of  intellectual 
charity  which  is  lacking  in  the  work  of  those  who  are  purely  ana¬ 
lysts.  They  are  frequently  mistaken,  for  this  charity  is  at  times 
but  flattery  and  most  dangerous.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  epic 
writers  are  necessary  to  the  vast  floating  conscience  of  an  epoch. 
And  Hugo  felt  it  so  well,  that  he  could  write  in  the  preface  of 
the  <(  Contemplations  * :  <(  When  I  speak  to  you  of  myself,  I  speak 
to  you  of  yourselves.  How  is  it  you  are  not  aware  of  it  ?  Ah  l 
thoughtless  one,  who  believest  that  I  am  not  thou !  * 

Thanks  to  this  dual  character  of  innovation  in  rhetoric  and  in 
its  broad  generality  of  conception,  the  works  of  Victor  Hugo, 
taken  altogether,  were  admired  both  by  the  artists  and  the  peo¬ 
ple.  Gustave  Flaubert,  were  he  living,  would  inscribe  with  tears 
his  name  upon  the  register  deposited  at  the  door  of  the  dead  poet, 
and  at  his  side,  Bouvard  and  Peruchet  would  also  write  their  names. 
To  this  universal  glory,  there  is  joined  another  cause  that  reaches 
to  the  depths  of  the  heart  of  man.  We  all  have  in  ourselves, 
whether  we  know  it  or  not,  what  Carlyle  called  <(hero  worship,® 
that  is  to  say,  the  worship  of  representative  men  in  whom  are 
expressed  the  virtues  proper  to  a  whole  group  of  individuals. 
Victor  Hugo  has  been  representative  to  the  highest  degree.  He 
has  been  an  incomparable  literary  hero.  He  was  in  his  lifetime 
the  writer ,  and  the  most  successful  example  of  that  race  which 
it  was  given  to  a  generation  to  realize  since  Goethe.  From  this 
point  of  view,  his  entire  existence  may  be  considered  as  a  work 
of  art  to  which  chance  and  the  will  had  contributed  in  the  same 
proportions.  He  knew  how  to  maintain  a  perfect  equilibrium 
between  the  physical  and  the  intellectual  life,  so  well  that,  at  an 
age  of  such  cruel  troubles,  he  kept  to  the  end  the  serenity  of 
genius  which  dominates  his  art  and  fulfills  his  entire  task.  What 


526 


PAUL  BOURGET 


a  striking  contrast  with  the  failure  of  so  many  others!  The  same 
spirit  of  reason  which  had  permitted  him  to  maintain  his  bodily 
vigor  throughout  his  gigantic  labor  had  preserved  him  from  the 
mad  prodigalities  in  the  hours  of  success  which  have  to  be  paid 
for  later  by  the  poverty  and  dependence  in  the  last  years  of 
life, —  the  supreme  years.  His  fortune,  nobly  acquired  and  wisely 
husbanded,  made  of  him  a  grand  seigneur  of  poesy  and  allowed 
him  to  open  his  house  to  his  faithful  friends  without  asking  any¬ 
thing  from  their  admiration.  His  political  opinions  triumphed  for 
the  moment,  in  a  way  that  surrounded  his  old  age  with  a  popu¬ 
larity  equal  to  that  of  the  most  vigorous  maturity.  He  had  never 
abandoned  that  art  of  poetizing  verses  to  which  he  owed  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  his  renown,  so  that  the  happy  hazards  of  his  destiny, 
like  the  fortunate  prudences  of  his  reflection,  co-operated  for  him 
to  the  triumph  of  the  poet.  This  made  of  his  individuality  some¬ 
thing  rare  and  almost  superhuman, —  a  living  poesy,  which,  un¬ 
like  his  written  poesy,  could  not  last  forever.  And  now  it 
happens  that  this  astonishing  existence  comes  suddenly  to  its  end. 
How  full  of  profound  and  penetrating  reverie  is  that  verse  I 
cannot  help  writing  at  the  end  of  this  short  essay :  — 

<(  O  sun,  whose  setting  leaves  our  sky  to  night ! w 


Written  on  the  announcement  of  Hugo’s  death. 


S27 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 

(1825-) 

ndrew  Kennedy  Hutchinson  Boyd,  whose  essays  have  been 
collected  recently  in  thirteen  volumes,  was  born  in  Ayr¬ 
shire,  Scotland,  in  November,  1825,  and  educated  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Glasgow.  By  profession  he  is  a  clergyman,  and  his  essays 
have  an  undercurrent  of  earnest  purpose;  but  he  does  not  make 
them  sermons,  and  he  does  make  them  interesting  to  readers  of  all 
classes  by  his  use  of  anecdote.  His  essays  show  the  marked  differ¬ 
ence  between  the  intellect  which  has  full  control  of  the  imaginative 
faculty  and  those  which  have  become  subjective  and  critical.  Among 
his  best-known  works  are  (<  The  Recreations  of  a  Country  Parson, }> 
(<  The  Commonplace  Philosopher  in  Town  and  Country, }>  and  (<  Changed 
Aspects  of  Unchanged  Truths. )}  The  essay,  (<  Getting  On  in  the 
World, one  of  the  best  examples  of  its  class,  is  remarkable  for  its 
wealth  of  illustrative  incident. 


GETTING  ON  IN  THE  WORLD 

It  is  interesting  to  look  at  the  various  arts  and  devices  by  which 
men  have  Got  On.  Judicious  puffing  is  a  great  thing.  But 
it  must  be  very  judicious.  Some  people  irritate  one  by  their 
constant  stories  as  to  their  own  great  doings.  I  have  known 
people  who  had  really  done  considerable  things,  yet  who  did  not 
get  the  credit  they  deserved,  just  because  they  were  given  to 
vaporing  of  what  they  had  done.  It  is  much  better  to  have 
friends  and  relatives  to  puff  you,  to  record  what  a  splendid  fel¬ 
low  you  are,  and  what  wonderful  events  have  befallen  you. 
Even  here,  if  you  become  known  as  one  of  a  set  who  puff  each 
other,  your  laudations  will  do  harm  instead  of  good.  It  is  a 
grand  thing  to  have  relations  and  friends  who  have  the  power  to 
actually  confer  material  success.  You  have  known  men  at  the 
bar,  to  whom  some  powerful  relative  gave  a  tremendous  lift  at 
starting  in  their  profession.  Of  course  this  would  in  some  cases 
only  make  their  failure  more  apparent,  unless  they  were  really 


528  ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 

equal  to  the  work  to  which  they  were  set.  There  is  a  cry 
against  nepotism.  It  will  not  be  shared  in  by  the  Nepotes.  It 
must  be  a  fine  thing  to  be  one  of  them.  Unhappily,  they  must 
always  be  a  very  small  minority;  and  thus  the  cry  against  them 
will  be  the  voice  of  a  great  majority.  I  cannot  but  observe  that 
the  names  of  men  who  hold  canonries  at  cathedrals,  and  other 
valuable  preferments  in  the  church,  are  frequently  the  same  as 
the  name  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese.  I  do  not  complain  of 
that.  It  is  the  plain  intention  of  Providence  that  the  children 
should  suffer  for  their  fathers’  sins,  and  gain  by  their  fathers’ 
rise.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  start  all  human  beings  for  the 
race  of  life  on  equal  terms.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  bring  all 
men  up  to  a  rope  stretched  across  the  course,  and  make  all  start 
fair.  If  a  man  be  a  drunken  blackguard,  or  a  heartless  fool,  his 
children  must  suffer  for  it,  must  start  at  a  disadvantage.  No 
human  power  can  prevent  that.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  a 
man  be  industrious  and  able,  and  rise  to  great  eminence,  his 
children  gain  by  all  this.  Robert  Stephenson  had  a  splendid 
start,  because  old  George,  his  father,  got  on  so  nobly.  Lord 
Stanley  entered  political  life  at  an  immense  advantage,  because 
he  was  Lord  Derby’s  son.  And  if  any  reader  of  this  page  had 
some  valuable  office  to  give  away,  and  had  a  son,  brother,  or 
nephew  who  deserved  it  as  well  as  anybody  else,  and  who  he 
could  easily  think  deserved  it  a  great  deal  better  than  anybody 
else,  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  reader  would  give  that  valuable 
office  to  the  son,  brother,  or  nephew.  I  have  known,  indeed, 
magnanimous  men  who  acted  otherwise;  who  in  exercising  abun¬ 
dant  patronage  suffered  no  nepotism.  It  was  a  positive  disad¬ 
vantage  to  be  related  to  these  men;  they  would  not  give  their 
relatives  ordinary  justice.  The  fact  of  your  being  connected 
with  them  made  it  tolerably  sure  that  you  would  never  get  any¬ 
thing  they  had  to  give.  All  honor  to  such  men!  Yet  they  sur¬ 
pass  average  humanity  so  far,  that  I  do  not  severely  blame  those 
who  act  on  lower  motives.  I  do  not.  find  much  fault  with  a  cer¬ 
tain  bishop  who  taught  me  theology  in  my  youth,  because  I  see 
that  he  has  made  his  son  a  canon  in  his  cathedral.  I  notice, 
without  indignation,  that  the  individual  who  holds  the  easy  and 
lucrative  office  of  associate  in  certain  courts  of  law  bears  the 
same  name  with  the  chief- justice.  You  have  heard  how  Lord 
Ellenborough  was  once  out  riding  on  horseback,  when  word  was 
brought  him  of  the  death  of  a  man  who  held  a  sinecure  office 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 


529 


with  a  revenue  of  some  thousands  a  year.  Lord  Ellenborough 
had  the  right  of  appointment  to  that  office.  He  instantly  re¬ 
solved  to  appoint  his  son.  But  the  thought  struck  him  that  he 
might  die  before  reaching  home;  he  might  fall  from  his  horse, 
or  the  like.  And  so  the  eminent  judge  took  from  his  pocket  a 
piece  of  paper  and  a  pencil,  and  then  and  there  wrote  upon  his 
saddle  a  formal  appointment  of  his  son  to  that  wealthy  place. 
And  as  it  was  a  place  which  notoriously  was  to  be  given,  not  to 
a  man  who  should  deserve  it,  but  merely  to  a  man  who  might 
be  lucky  enough  to  get  it,  I  do  not  know  that  Lord  Ellenbor¬ 
ough  deserved  to  be  greatly  blamed.  In  any  case,  his  son,  as  he 
quarterly  pocketed  the  large  payment  for  doing  nothing,  would 
doubtless  hold  the  blame  of  mankind  as  of  very  little  account. 

But  whether  you  Get  On  by  having  friends  who  cry  you  up, 
or  by  having  friends  who  can  materially  advance  you,  of  course 
it  is  your  luck  to  have  such  friends.  We  all  know  that  it  is 
<(  the  accident  of  an  accident  *  that  makes  a  man  succeed  to  a 
peerage  or  an  estate.  And  though  trumpeting  be  a  great  fact 
and  power,  still  your  luck  comes  in  to  say  whether  the  trumpet 
shall  in  your  case  be  successful.  One  man,  by  judicious  puffing, 
gets  a  great  name;  another,  equally  deserving,  and  apparently  in 
exactly  the  same  circumstances,  fails  to  get  it.  No  doubt  the 
dog  who  gets  an  ill  name,  even  if  he  deserves  the  ill  name,  de¬ 
serves  it  no  more  than  various  other  sad  dogs  who  pass  scot 
free.  Over  all  events,  all  means  and  ends  in  this  world,  there 
rules  God’s  inscrutable  sovereignty.  And  to  our  view,  that  direc¬ 
tion  appears  quite  arbitrary.  (<  One  shall  be  taken,  and  the  other 
left.”  “Jacob  have  I  loved,  and  Esau  have  I  hated. ®  “Hath 
not  the  potter  power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make 
one  vessel  unto  honor,  and  another  unto  dishonor  ?  *  A  sarcastic 
London  periodical  lately  declared  that  the  way  to  attain  eminence 
in  a  certain  walk  of  life  was  to  <(  combine  mediocrity  of  talent 
with  family  affliction.  ®  And  it  is  possible  that  instances  might 
be  indicated  in  which  that  combination  led  to  very  considerable 
position.  But  there  are  many  more  cases  in  which  the  two 
things  co-existed  in  a  very  high  degree  without  leading  to  any 
advancement  whatsoever.  It  is  all  luck  again. 

A  way  in  which  small  men  sometimes  Get  On  is  by  finding 
ways  to  be  helpful  to  bigger  men  Those  bigger  men  have  oc¬ 
casional  opportunities  of  helping  those  who  have  been  helpful  to 
them.  If  you  yourself,  or  some  near  relation  of  yours,  yield 


530 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 


effectual  support  to  a  candidate  at  a  keenly  contested  county 
election,  you  may  possibly  be  repaid  by  influence  in  your  favor 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  government  of  the  day.  From  a  bish¬ 
opric  down  to  a  beadleship  I  have  known  such  means  serve 
valuable  ends.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  any  link,  however 
humble,  and  however  remote,  that  connects  you  with  a  secretary 
of  state,  or  any  member  of  the  administration.  Political  tergi¬ 
versation  is  a  great  thing.  Judicious  ratting,  at  a  critical  period, 
will  generally  secure  some  one  considerable  reward.  In  a  con¬ 
servative  institution  to  stand  almost  alone  in  professing  very  lib¬ 
eral  opinions,  or  in  a  liberal  institution  to  stand  almost  alone  in 
professing  conservative  opinions,  will  probably  cause  you  to  Get 
On.  The  leaders  of  parties  are  likely  to  reward  those  who  among 
the  faithless  are  faithful  to  them,  and  who  hold  by  them  under 
difficulties.  Still,  luck  comes  in  here.  While  some  will  attain 
great  rewards  by  professing  opinions  very  inconsistent  with  their 
position,  others  by  doing  the  same  things  merely  bring  them¬ 
selves  into  universal  ridicule  and  contempt.  It  is  a  powerful 
thing  to  have  abundant  impudence,  to  be  quite  ready  to  ask  for 
whatever  you  want.  Worthier  men  wait  till  their  merits  are 
found  out:  you  don’t.  You  may  possibly  get  what  you  ask,  and 
then  you  may  snap  your  fingers  in  the  face  of  the  worthier  man. 
By  a  skillful  dodge  A  got  something  which  ought  to  have  come 
to  B.  Still  A  can  drive  in  dignity  past  B,  covering  him  with 
mud  from  his  chariot  wheels.  There  was  a  man  in  the  last  cen¬ 
tury  who  was  made  a  bishop  by  George  III.  for  having  published 
a  poem  on  the  death  of  George  II.  That  poem  declared  that 
George  II.  was  removed  by  Providence  to  heaven  because  he  was 
too  good  for  this  world.  You  know  what  kind  of  man  George 
II.  was;  you  know  whether  even  Bishop  Porteus  could  possibly 
have  thought  he  was  speaking  the  truth  in  publishing  that  most 
despicable  piece  of  toadyism.  Yet  Bishop  Porteus  was  really  a 
good  man,  and  died  in  the  odor  of  sanctity.  He  was  merely  a 
little  yielding.  Honesty  would  have  stood  in  the  way  of  his  Get¬ 
ting  On;  and  so  honesty  had  to  make  way  for  the  time.  Many 
people  know  that  a  certain  bishop  was  to  have  been  made  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Canterbury,  but  that  he  threw  away  his  chance  by  an 
act  of  injudicious  honesty.  On  one  occasion  he  opposed  the 
court,  under  very  strong  conscientious  convictions  of  duty.  If  he 
had  just  sat  still,  and  refrained  from  bearing  testimony  to  what 
he  held  for  truth,  he  would  have  Got  On  much  further  than  he 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 


53* 


ever  did.  I  am  very  sure  the  good  man  never  regretted  that  he 
had  acted  honestly. 

It  is  worth  remembering,  as  further  proof  how  little  you  can 
count  on  any  means  certainly  conducing  to  the  end  of  Getting 
On,  that  the  most  opposite  courses  of  conduct  have  led  men  to 
great  success.  To  be  the  toady  of  a  great  man  is  a  familiar  art 
of  self-advancement;  there  once  was  a  person  who  by  doing  ex¬ 
tremely  dirty  work  for  a  notorious  peer,  attained  a  considerable 
place  in  the  government  of  this  country.  But  it  is  a  question  of 
luck  after  all.  Sometimes  it  has  been  the  making  of  a  man  to 
insult  a  duke,  or  to  bully  a  chief-justice.  It  made  him  a  popular 
favorite;  it  enlisted  general  sympathy  on  his  side;  it  gained  him 
credit  for  nerve  and  courage.  But  public  feeling,  and  the  feeling 
of  the  dispensers  of  patronage  in  all  walks  of  life,  oscillates  so 
much  that  at  different  times  the  most  contradictory  qualities  may 
commend  a  man  for  preferment.  You  may  have  known  a  man 
who  was  much  favored  by  those  in  power,  though  he  was  an  ex¬ 
tremely  outspoken,  injudicious,  and  almost  reckless  person.  It  is* 
only  at  rare  intervals  that  such  a  man  finds  favor;  a  grave, 
steady,  and  reliable  man,  who  will  never  say  or  do  anything  out¬ 
rageous,  is  for  the  most  part  preferred.  And  now  and  then  you 
may  find  a  highly  cultivated  congregation,  wearied  by  having 
had  for  its  minister  for  many  years  a  remarkably  correct  and. 
judicious,  though  tiresome  preacher,  making  choice  for  his  suc¬ 
cessor  of  a  brilliant  and  startling  orator,  very  deficient  in  taste 
and  sense.  A  man’s  luck  in  all  these  cases  will  appear,  if  it 
bring  him  into  notice  just  at  the  time  when  his  special  charac¬ 
teristics  are  held  in  most  estimation.  If  for  some  specific  pur¬ 
pose  you  desire  to  have  a  horse  which  has  only  three  legs,  it  is. 
plain  that  if  two  horses  present  themselves  for  your  choice,  one 
with  three  legs  and  the  other  with  four,  you  will  select  and  pre¬ 
fer  the  animal  with  three.  It  will  be  the  best  so  far  as  concerns 

\ 

you.  And  its  good  luck  will  appear  in  this,  that  it  has  come  to 
your  notice  just  when  your  liking  happened  to  be  a  somewhat 
peculiar  one.  In  like  manner  you  may  find  people  say,  In  fill¬ 
ing  up  this  place  at  the  present  time  we  don’t  want  a  clever 
man,  or  a  well-informed  man,  or  an  accomplished  and  present¬ 
able  man;  we  want  a  meek  man,  a  humble  man,  a  man  who 
will  take  snubbing  freely,  a  rough  man,  a  man  like  ourselves. 
And  I  have  known  many  cases  in  which,  of  several  competitors, 
one  was  selected  just  for  the  possession  of  qualities  which  testi- 


532 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 


fied  his  inferiority  to  the  others.  But  then,  in  this  case,  that 
which  was  absolutely  the  worst  was  the  best  for  the  particular 
case.  The  people  wanted  a  horse  with  three  legs;  and  when 
such  an  animal  presented  itself,  they  very  naturally  preferred 
him  to  the  other  horses  which  had  four  legs.  The  horses  with 
four  legs  naturally  complained  of  the  choice,  and  thought  them¬ 
selves  badly  used  when  the  screw  was  taken  in  preference. 
They  were  wrong.  There  are  places  for  "which  a  rough  man  is 
better  than  a  smooth  one,  a  dirty  man  than  a  clean  one,  in  the 
judgment  (that  is)  of  the  people  who  have  the  filling  up  of  the 
place.  I  certainly  think  their  judgment  is  wrong.  But  it  is 
their  judgment,  and  of  course  they  act  upon  it. 

As  regards  the  attainment  of  very  great  and  unusual  wealth 
by  business  or  the  like,  it  is  very  plain  how  much  there  is  of 
luck.  A  certain  degree  of  business  talent  is  of  course  necessary 
in  the  man  who  rises  in  a  few  years  from  nothing  to  enormous 
wealth;  but  it  is  Providence  that  says  who  shall  draw  the  great 
prize, —  for  other  men  with  just  as  much  ability  and  industry  en¬ 
tirely  fail.  Talent  and  industry  in  business  may  make  sure,  un¬ 
less  in  very  extraordinary  circumstances,  of  decent  success;  but 
Providence  fixes  who  shall  make  four  hundred  thousand  a  year. 
The  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong,  nor 
riches  to  men  of  understanding  —  that  is,  their  riches  are  not 
necessarily  in  proportion  to  their  understanding.  Trickery  and 
cheating,  not  crossed  by  ill  luck,  may  gain  great  wealth.  I  shall 
not  name  several  instances  which  will  occur  to  every  one.  But 
I  suppose,  my  friend,  that  you  and  I  would  cut  off  our  right 
hand  before  we  should  Get  On  in  worldly  wealth  by  such  means 
as  these.  You  must  make  up  your  mind,  however,  that  you  will 
not  be  envious  when  you  see  the  fine  house  and  the  horses  and 
carriages  of  some  successful  trickster.  All  this  indeed  might 
have  been  had,  but  you  would  not  have  it  at  the  price.  That 
worldly  success  is  a  great  deal  too  dear  which  is  to  be  gained 
only  by  sullying  your  integrity.  And  I  gladly  believe  that  I 
know  many  men  whom  no  material  bribe  would  tempt  to  what 
is  mean  or  dishonest. 

There  is  something  curious  in  the  feeling  which  many  people 
cherish  towards  an  acquaintance  who  becomes  a  successful  man. 
Getting  On  gives  some  people  mortal  offense.  To  them  success 
is  an  unpardonable  crime.  They  absolutely  hate  the  man  that 
Gets  On.  Timon,  you  remember,  lost  the  affection  of  those  who 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 


533 


knew  him  when  he  was  ruined;  but  depend  upon  it,  there  are 
those  who  would  have  hated  Timon  much  worse  had  he  suddenly- 
met  some  great  piece  of  good  fortune.  I  have  said  that  envious 
and  malicious  people  can  better  bear  the  success  of  a  man  whom 
they  do  not  know.  They  cannot  stand  it  when  an  old  school 
companion  shoots  ahead.  They  cannot  stand  it  when  a  man  in 
their  own  profession  attains  to  eminence.  They  diligently  thwart 
such  a  one’s  plans,  and  then  chuckle  over  their  failure,  saying, 
with  looks  of  deadly  malice :  (<  Ah,  this  will  do  him  a  great  deal 
of  good ! }> 

But  now,  my  reader,  I  am  about  to  stop.  Let  me  briefly  sum 
up  my  philosophy  of  Getting  On.  It  is  this:  A  wise  man  in 
this  world  will  not  set  his  heart  on  Getting  On,  and  will  not 
push  very  much  to  Get  On.  He  will  do  his  best,  and  humbly 
take,  with  thankfulness,  what  the  Hand  above  sends  him.  It  is 
not  worth  while  to  push.  The  whole  machinery  that  tends  to 
earthly  success  is  so  capricious  and  uncertain  in  its  action  that 
no  man  can  count  upon  it,  and  no  wise  man  will.  A  chance 
word,  a  look,  the  turning  of  a  straw,  may  make  your  success  or 
mar  it.  A  man  meets  you  on  the  street  and  asks,  Who  is  the 
person  for  such  a  place,  great  or  small  ?  You  suddenly  think  of 
somebody  and  say,  He  is  your  man;  and  the  thing  is  settled. 
A  hundred  poor  fellows  are  disappointed.  You  did  not  know 
about  them,  or  their  names  did  not  occur  to  you.  You  put  your 
hand  into  a  hat,  and  drew  out  a  name.  You  stuck  a  hook  into 
your  memory  and  this  name  came  out.  And  that  has  made  the 
man’s  fortune.  And  the  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that 
such  an  infinitude  of  little  fortuitous  circumstances  may  either 
further  or  prevent  our  Getting  On;  the  whole  game  is  so  com¬ 
plicated  that  the  right  and  happy  course  is  humbly  to  do  your 
duty  and  leave  the  issue  with  God.  Let  me  say  it  again :  <(  Seek- 
est  thou  great  things  for  thyself  ?  Seek  them  not ! )}  It  is  not 
worth  while.  All  your  seeking  will  not  make  you  sure  of  get¬ 
ting  them;  the  only  things  you  will  make  sure  of  will  be  fever 
and  toil  and  suspense.  We  shall  not  push  or  scheme  or  dodge 
for  worldly  success.  We  shall  succeed  exactly  as  well;  and  we 
shall  save  ourselves  much  that  is  wearisome  and  degrading.  Let 
us  trust  in  God,  my  friend,  and  do  right,  and  we  shall  Get  On 
as  much  as  he  thinks  good  for  us.  And  it  is  not  the  greatest 
thing  to  Get  On  —  I  mean,  to  Get  On  in  matters  that  begin  and 
end  upon  this  world.  There  is  a  progress  in  which  we  are  sure 


534 


ANDREW  KENNEDY  HUTCHINSON  BOYD 


of  success  if  we  earnestly  aim  at  it,  which  is  the  best  Getting 
On  of  all.  Let  us  “grow  in  grace. »  Let  us  try,  by  God’s  aid, 
to  grow  better,  kinder,  humbler,  more  patient,  more  earnest  to 
do  good  to  all.  If  the  germ  of  the  better  life  be  implanted  in 
us  by  the  blessed  Spirit,  and  tended  by  him  day  by  day;  if  we 
trust  our  Savior  and  love  our  God,  then  our  whole  existence, 
here  and  hereafter,  will  be  a  glorious  progress  from  good  to  bet¬ 
ter.  We  shall  always  be  Getting  On. 

From  <(The  Commonplace  Philosopher  in 
Town  and  Country. » 


i/lftA. 


“?/7. 


C  !'<&% 


Autho 


r. . £l 


ktj  M-cW-e 


535 


ROBERT  BOYLE 

(1627-1691) 

:rhaave  calls  Robert  Boyle  <(  the  ornament  of  his  age  and 
country,  ®  the  successor  of  Bacon,  and  a  philosopher  (<to 
whom  we  owe  the  secrets  of  fire,  air,  water,  animals,  vege¬ 
tables,  fossils.  ®  Although  his  fame  as  a  scientist  has  long  been 
eclipsed  by  the  work  of  those  who  owed  their  ability  to  succeed 
largely  to  his  efforts  as  a  pioneer  in  chemistry  and  physics,  he  had 
a  genius,  well  illustrated  in  his  contemplations  of  (<A  Glow  Worm  in 
a  Phial®  which  would  not  allow  him  to  be  forgotten  even  if  he  could 
cease  to  be  remembered  as  the  discoverer  of  Boyle’s  Law  of  the 
Elasticity  of  Air.  He  was  the  seventh  son  of  the  Earl  of  Cork.  Born 
at  Lismore  Castle,  Ireland,  January  25th,  1627,  he  inherited  from  his 
father  the  manor  of  Stalbridge,  where  he  spent  much  of  his  time  in 
close  retirement,  devoted  to  scientific  studies  and  experiments.  He 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  in  1680  was 
chosen  its  president.  Between  1654  and  1668  he  lived  at  Oxford,  and 
while  there  improved  the  air  pump.  One  of  his  scientific  essays  ex¬ 
cited  Swift’s  bitter  humor,  and,  it  is  said,  gave  him  his  first  suggestion 
of  (<  Gulliver’s  Travels.®  Boyle  died  December  30th,  1691.  Among 
his  numerous  works  are  <(  Tracts  about  the  Cosmical  Qualities  of 
Things, ®  1670;  (< Essays  on  the  Origin  and  Virtue  of  Gems,”  1672; 
<(  Essays  on  the  Strange  Subtlety,  etc.,  of  Effluvia, ®  1673;  <(  The  Ex¬ 
cellence  of  Theology, ®  1673;  <(  The  Saltness  of  the  Sea,  etc.,®  1674; 
(<Some  Considerations  about  the  Reconcilableness  of  Reason  and 
Religion,®  1675;  (<  Experiments  about  the  Mechanical  Origin  or  Pro¬ 
duction  of  Particular  Qualities,®  1676;  (<  Historical  Account  of  a  De¬ 
gradation  of  Gold  by  an  Anti-Elixir,®  1678;  <(  Discourse  of  Things 
above  Reason,®  1681;  <(  Memoirs  on  the  Natural  History  of  Human 
Blood,®  1684;  Essay  in  the  Great  Effects  of  Even,  Languid,  and  Un¬ 
heeded  Motion,®  1690;  <(  Of  the  High  Veneration  Man’s  Intellect  Owes 
to  God,®  1690;  (<  The  Christian  Virtuoso,®  1690;  and  <(  Free  Inquiry 
into  the  Vulgarly  Received  Notion  of  Nature,®  1691. 


536 


ROBERT  BOYLE 


ON  A  GLOW  WORM  IN  A  PHIAL 

If  this  unhappy  worm  had  been  as  despicable  as  the  other  rep¬ 
tiles  that  crept  up  and  down  the  hedge  whence  I  took  him, 
he  might  as  well  as  they  have  been  left  there  still,  and  his 
own  obscurity  as  well  as  that  of  the  night  had  preserved  him 
from  the  confinement  he  now  suffers.  And  if,  as  he  sometimes 
for  a  pretty  while  withdrew  that  luminous  liquor,  that  is  as  it 
were  the  candle  to  this  dark  lanthorn,  he  had  continued  to  forbear 
the  disclosing  of  it,  he  might  have  deluded  my  search  and  escaped 
his  present  confinement. 

Rare  qualities  may  sometimes  be  prerogatives  without  being 
advantages.  And  though  a  needless  ostentation  of  one’s  excel¬ 
lencies  may  be  more  glorious,  yet  a  modest  concealment  of  them 
is  usually  more  safe,  and  an  unseasonable  disclosure  of  flashes, 
of  wit  may  sometimes  do  a  man  no  other  service  than  to  direct 
his  adversaries  how  they  may  do  him  a  mischief. 

And  as  though  this  worm  be  lodged  in  a  crystalline  prison, 
through  which  it  has  the  honor  to  be  gazed  at  by  many  eyes, 
and  among  them  are  some  that  are  said  to  shine  far  more  in 
the  day  than  this  creature  does  in  the  night,  yet  no  doubt,  if  he 
could  express  a  sense  of  the  condition  he  is  in,  he  would  be¬ 
wail  it,  and  think  himself  unhappy  in  an  excellency  which  pro¬ 
cures  him  at  once  admiration  and  captivity,  by  the  former  of 
which  he  does  but  give  others  a  pleasure,  while  in  the  latter  he 
himself  resents  a  misery. 

This  ofttimes  is  the  fate  of  a  great  wit,  whom  the  advantage 
he  has  of  ordinary  men  in  knowledge,  the  light  of  the  mind  ex¬ 
poses  to  so  many  effects  of  other  men’s  importunate  curiosity  as 
to  turn  his  prerogative  into  a  trouble;  the  light  that  ennobles 
him  tempts  inquisitive  men  to  keep  him  as  upon  the  score  we  do 
this  glow  worm  from  sleeping,  and  his  conspicuousness  is  not  more 
a  friend  to  his  fame  than  an  enemy  to  his  quiet,  for  men  allow 
such  much  praise  but  little  rest.  They  attract  the  eyes  of  others, 
but  are  not  suffered  to  shut  their  own,  and  find  that  by  a  very 
disadvantageous  bargain  they  are  reduced  for  that  imaginary 
good  called  fame,  to  pay  that  real  blessing,  liberty. 

And  as  though  this  luminous  creature  be  himself  imprisoned 
in  so  close  a  body  as  glass,  yet  the  light  that  ennobles  him  is 
not  thereby  restrained  from  diffusing  itself,  so  there  are  certain 


ROBERT  BOYLE 


537 


truths  that  have  in  them  so  much  of  native  light  or  evidence 
that  by  the  personal  distress  of  the  proposer  it  cannot  be  hidden 
or  restrained,  but  in  spite  of  prisons  it  shines  freely,  and  pro¬ 
cures  the  teachers  of  it  admiration  even  when  it  cannot  procure 
them  liberty. 


THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  THE  RESURRECTION 

They  who  assent  to  the  possibility  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
same  bodies,  will,  I  presume,  be  much  more  easily  induced 
to  admit  the  possibility  of  the  qualifications  the  Christian 
religion  ascribes  to  the  glorified  bodies  of  the  raised  saints.  For, 
supposing  the  truth  of  the  history  of  the  Scriptures,  we  may  ob¬ 
serve  that  the  power  of  God  has  already  extended  itself  to  the 
performance  of  such  things  as  import  as  much  as  we  need  infer, 
sometimes  by  suspending  the  natural  actings  of  bodies  upon  one 
another,  and  sometimes  by  endowing  human  and  other  bodies 
with  preternatural  qualities.  And  indeed,  lightness,  or  rather 
agility,  indifferent  to  gravity  and  levity,  incorruption,  transpar¬ 
ency,  and  opacity,  figure,  color,  etc.,  being  but  mechanical  affec¬ 
tions  of  matter,  it  cannot  be  incredible  that  the  most  free  and 
powerful  Author  of  those  laws  of  nature  according  to  which  all 
the  phenomena  of  qualities  are  regulated,  may  (as  he  thinks  fit) 
introduce,  establish,  or  change  them  in  any  assigned  portion  of 
matter,  and  consequently  in  that  whereof  a  human  body  consists. 
Thus,  though  iron  be  a  body  above  eight  times  heavier,  bulk  for 
bulk,  than  water,  yet  in  the  case  of  Elisha’s  behest  its  native 
gravity  was  rendered  ineffectual,  and  it  emerged  from  the  bottom 
to  the  top  of  the  water;  and  the  gravitation  of  Saint  Peter’s  body 
was  suspended  whilst  his  Master  commanded  him,  and  by  that 
command  enabled  him  to  come  to  him  walking  on  the  sea.  Thus 
the  operation  of  the  most  active  body  in  nature,  flame,  was  sus¬ 
pended  in  Nebuchadnezzar’s  fiery  furnace,  whilst  Daniel’s  three 
companions  walked  unharmed  in  those  flames  that,  in  a  trice, 
consumed  the  kindlers  of  them.  Thus  did  the  Israelites’  manna, 
which  was  of  so  perishable  a  nature  that  it  would  corrupt  in  a 
little  above  a  day  when  gathered  in  any  day  of  the  week  but 
that  which  preceded  the  Sabbath,  keep  good  twice  as  long,  and 
when  laid  up  before  the  ark  for  a  memorial  would  last  whole 
ages  uncorrupted.  And  to  add  a  proof  that  comes  more  directly 


53» 


ROBERT  BOYLE 


home  to  our  purpose,  the  body  of  our  Savior  after  his  resurrec¬ 
tion,  though  it  retained  the  very  impressions  that  the  nails  of  the 
cross  had  made  in  his  hands  and  feet,  and  the  wound  that  the 
spear  had  made  in  his  side,  and  was  still  called  in  the  Scripture 
his  body,  as  indeed  it  was,  and  more  so  than  according  to  our 
past  discourse  it  is  necessary  that  every  body  should  be  that 
is  rejoined  to  the  soul  in  the  resurrection*  and  yet  this  glorified 
body  had  the  same  qualifications  that  are  promised  to  the  saints 
in  their  state  of  glory, —  Saint  Paul  informing  us  <(that  our  vile 
bodies  shall  be  transformed  into  the  likeness  of  his  glorious 
body,”  which  the  history  of  the  Gospel  assures  us  was  endowed 
with  far  nobler  qualities  than  before  his  death.  And  whereas  the 
Apostle  adds,  as  we  formerly  noted,  that  this  great  change  of 
schematism  in  the  saints’  bodies  will  be  effected  by  the  irresisti¬ 
ble  power  of  Christ,  we  shall  not  much  scruple  at  the  admission 
of  such  an  effect  from  such  an  agent,  if  we  consider  how  much 
the  bare,  slight,  mechanical  alteration  of  the  texture  of  a  body 
may  change  its  sensible  qualities  for  the  better.  For  without  any 
visible  additament,  I  have  several  times  changed  dark  and  opacous 
lead  into  finely  colored  transparent  and  specifically  lighter  glass. 
And  there  is  another  instance,  which,  though  because  of  its  ob¬ 
viousness  it  is  less  heeded,  is  yet  more  considerable,  for  who  will 
distrust  what  advantageous  changes  such  an  agent  as  God  can 
work  by  changing  the  texture  of  a  portion  of  matter,  if  he  but 
observe  what  happens  merely  upon  the  account  of  such  a  me¬ 
chanical  change  in  the  lighting  of  a  candle,  that  is  newly  blown 
out,  by  the  applying  another  to  the  ascending  smoke.  For  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  an  opacous,  dark,  languid,  and  stinking 
smoke  loses  all  its  smell  and  is  changed  into  a  most  active,  pen¬ 
etrant,  and  shining  body. 

From  His  Collected  Works,  1772. 


THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  NATURE 

The  two  great  advantages  which  a  real  acquaintance  with 
nature  brings  to  our  minds  are,  first,  by  instructing  our 
understandings  and  gratifying  our  curiosities,  and  next,  by 
exciting  and  cherishing  our  devotion. 

And  for  the  first  of  these;  since,  as  Aristotle  teacheth,  and 
was  taught  himself  by  common  experience,  all  men  are  naturally 


ROBERT  BOYLE 


539 


desirous  to  know;  that  propensity  cannot  but  be  powerfully  en¬ 
gaged  to  the  works  of  nature,  which,  being  incessantly  present  to 
our  senses,  do  continually  solicit  our  curiosities;  of  whose  potent 
inclining  us  to  the  contemplation  of  nature’s  wonders,  it  is  not, 
perhaps,  the  inconsiderablest  instance,  that,  though  the  natural 
philosophy  hitherto  taught  in  most  schools  hath  been  so  litigious 
in  its  theory,  and  so  barren  as  to  its  productions,  yet  it  hath 
found  numbers  of  zealous  and  learned  cultivators,  whom  sure 
nothing  but  men’s  inbred  fondness  for  the  object  it  converses 
with,  and  the  end  it  pretends  to,  could  so  passionately  devote  to  it. 

And  since  that  (as  the  same  Aristotle,  taught  by  his  master 
Plato,  well  observes)  admiration  is  the  parent  of  philosophy,  by 
engaging  us  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  things  at  which  we 
marvel,  we  cannot  but  be  powerfully  invited  to  the  contempla¬ 
tion  of  nature,  by  living  and  conversing  among  wonders,  some  of 
which  are  obvious  and  conspicuous  enough  to  amaze  even  ordi¬ 
nary  beholders,  and  others  admirable  and  abstruse  enough  to 
astonish  the  most  inquisitive  spectators. 

The  bare  prospect  of  this  magnificent  fabric  of  the  universe, 
furnished  and  adorned  with  such  strange  variety  of  curious  and 
useful  creatures,  would  suffice  to  transport  us  both  with  wonder 
and  joy  if  their  commonness  did  not  hinder  their  operations. 
Of  which  truth  Mr.  Stepkins,  the  famous  oculist,  did  not  long 
since  supply  us  with  a  memorable  instance;  for  (as  both  himself 
and  an  illustrious  person  that  was  present  at  the  cure,  informed 
me)  a  maid  of  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  having  by  a  couple 
of  cataracts  that  she  brought  with  her  into  the  world,  lived  ab¬ 
solutely  blind  from  the  moment  of  her  birth,  being  brought  to 
the  free  use  of  her  eyes,  was  so  ravished  at  the  surprising  spec¬ 
tacle  of  so  many  and  various  objects  as  presented  themselves  to 
her  unacquainted  sight,  that  almost  everything  she  saw  trans¬ 
ported  her  with  such  admiration  and  delight  that  she  was  in 
danger  to  lose  the  eyes  of  her  mind  by  those  of  her  body. 


From  <( Usefulness  of  Natural  Philosophy.^ 


54<> 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVAR1N 

(i755-i826) 


■ad  Izaak  Walton  been  a  Parisian  he  might  have  written  <(The 
Physiology  of  Taste w  as  well  as  it  was  actually  done  by 
Brillat-Savarin,  but  it  is  not  imaginable  that  it  could  have 
been  done  at  all  by  any  one  else.  The  extreme  seriousness  of  the 
humor  with  which  Brillat-Savarin  makes  everything  else  in  the  range 
of  human  experience  depend  on  gastronomy  has  never  been  equaled 
elsewhere,  though  Charles  Lamb  approaches  it  in  his  suggestion  that 
pineapple  is  a  flavor  <(  almost  too  transcendent, —  a  delight,  if  not 
sinful,  yet  so  like  sinning  that  a  tender-conscienced  person  would  do 
well  to  pause. })  In  much  the  same  spirit  the  author  of  (<  The  Physi¬ 
ology  of  Taste  »  gave  Paris  a  new  emotion  by  inquiring  into  the  true 
relations  of  gastronomy  to  the  other  sciences, —  even  endeavoring  to 
reconcile  mankind  to  death  itself,  as  the  climax  and  consummation  of 
good  living.  In  this  he  is  truly  Horatian,  and  when  he  dismisses  us 
at  last,  it  is  as  sated  guests  from  whom  he  expects  to  hear  without 
Tegret  his  <(  Lusisti  satis,  edisti  satis  atque  bibisti — 


Arise  and  go!  You’ve  had  your  will 
Of  all  that  most  your  life  endeared: 

You’ve  eaten,  drunk,  and  played  your  fill  — 

Arise!  and  let  the  board  be  cleared. 

Born  at  Belley,  France,  April  ist,  1755,  Brillat-Savarin  had  the 
philosophical  quiet  necessary  for  the  best  possible  digestion  rudely 
interrupted  by  the  French  Revolution.  He  emigrated  to  America  in 
1793,  but  returned  to  France  in  1796,  and  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in 
fitting  himself  for  his  great  work  which  appeared  in  1825  as  (<  La 
Physiologie  du  Gout,^  and  at  once  demonstrated  by  its  world-wide 
success  its  right  to  immortality.  Its  author  died  in  1826  without 
writing  anything  else  comparable  to  it, —  leaving  it  thus  forever  in¬ 
comparable,  not  only  among  kitchen  classics,  but  in  literature  at  large. 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIN 


541 


GASTRONOMY  AND  THE  OTHER  SCIENCES 

rpHE  sciences  are  not  like  Minerva  who  started  ready  armed 
from  the  brain  of  Jupiter.  They  are  children  of  time  and 
are  formed  insensibly  by  the  collection  of  the  methods 
pointed  out  by  experience,  and  at  a  later  day  by  the  principles 
deduced  from  the  combination  of  those  methods. 

Thus  old  men,  the  prudence  of  whom  caused  them  to  be  called 
to  the  bedside  of  invalids,  whose  compassion  taught  to  cure 
wounds,  were  the  first  physicians. 

The  shepherds  of  Egypt,  who  observed  that  certain  stars  after 
the  lapse  of  a  certain  period  of  time  met  in  the  heavens,  were 
the  first  astronomers. 

The  person  who  first  uttered  in  simple  language  the  truth 
2+2=4  created  mathematics,  that  mighty  science  which  really 
placed  man  on  the  throne  of  the  universe. 

In  the  course  of  the  last  sixty  years,  many  new  sciences  have 
taken  their  place  in  the  category  of  our  knowledge,  among  which 
is  stereotomy,  descriptive  geometry,  and  the  chemistry  of  gas. 

All  sciences  cultivated  for  a  long  time  must  advance,  espe¬ 
cially  as  the  art  of  printing  makes  retrogression  impossible.  Who 
knows,  for  instance,  if  the  chemistry  of  gases  will  not  ultimately 
overcome  those,  as  yet,  rebellious  substances,  mingle  and  combine 
them  in  proportions  not  as  yet  attempted,  and  thence  obtain  sub¬ 
stances  and  effects  which  would  remove  many  restrictions  in  our 
powers. 

Gastronomy  has  at  last  appeared,  and  all  the  sister  sciences 
have  made  a  way  for  it. 

Well;  what  could  be  refused  to  that  which  sustains  us  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave,  which  increases  the  gratifications  of  love 
and  the  confidence  of  friendship  which  disarms  hatred  and  offers 
us,  in  the  short  passage  of  our  lives,  the  only  pleasure  which  not 
being  followed  by  fatigue  makes  us  weary  of  all  others  ? 

Certainly,  as  long  as  it  was  confided  to  merely  hired  attend¬ 
ants,  as  long  as  the  secret  was  kept  in  cellars,  and  where  dis¬ 
pensaries  were  written,  the  results  were  but  the  products  of  an 
art. 

At  last,  too  late,  perhaps,  savants  drew  near. 

They  examined,  analyzed,  and  classified  alimentary  substances, 
and  reduced  them  to  simple  elements. 


542 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIN 


They  measured  the  mysteries  of  assimilation,  and  following 
most  matter  in  all  its  metamorphoses  saw  how  it  became  vivi¬ 
fied. 

They  watched  the  diet  in  its  temporary  and  permanent  effects, 
for  days,  months,  and  lives. 

They  even  estimated  its  influence  and  thought  to  ascertain  if 
the  savor  be  impressed  by  the  organs  or  if  it  acts  without  them. 
From  all  this  they  deduced  a  lofty  theory  which  embraces  all 
mankind,  and  all  that  portion  of  creation  which  may  be  animal- 
ized. 

While  all  this  was  going  on  in  the  studies  of  savants,  it  was 
said  in  drawing-rooms  that  the  science  which  fed  man  was  at 
least  as  valuable  as  that  which  killed  him.  Poets  sang  the  pleas¬ 
ures  of  the  table,  and  books,  the  object  of  which  was  good  cheer, 
awakened  the  greatest  and  keenest  interest  in  the  profound  views 
and  maxims  they  presented. 

Such  were  the  circumstances  which  preceded  the  invention  of 
gastronomy. 

Gastronomy  is  a  scientific  definition  of  all  that  relates  to  man 
as  a  feeding  animal. 

Its  object  is  to  watch  over  the  preservation  of  man  by  means 
of  the  best  possible  food. 

It  does  so  by  directing,  according  to  certain  principles,  all 
those  who  procure,  search  for,  or  prepare  things  which  may  be 
converted  into  food. 

To  tell  the  truth,  this  is  what  incites  cultivators,  vinedressers, 
fishermen,  huntsmen,  and  the  immense  family  of  cooks,  whatever 
title  or  qualification  they  bear,  to  the  preparation  of  food. 

Gastronomy  is  a  chapter  of  natural  history,  for  the  fact  that 
it  makes  a  classification  of  alimentary  substances. 

Of  physics,  for  it  examines  their  properties  and  qualities. 

Of  chemistry,  from  the  various  analyses  and  decomposition  to 
which  it  subjects  them. 

Of  cookery,  from  the  fact  that  it  prepares  food  and  makes  it. 
agreeable. 

Of  commerce,  from  the  fact  that  it  purchases  at  as  low  a  rate 
as  possible  what  it  consumes,  and  displays  to  the  greatest  advan¬ 
tage  what  it  offers  for  sale. 

Lastly  it  is  a  chapter  of  political  economy,  from  the  resources 
it  furnishes  the  taxing  power,  and  the  means  of  exchange  it 
substitutes  between  nations. 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIN 


543 


Gastronomy  rules  all  life,  for  the  tears  of  the  infant  appeal  for 
the  bosom  of  the  nurse;  the  dying  man  receives  with  some  de¬ 
gree  of  pleasure  the  last  cooling  drink,  which,  alas!  he  is  unable 
to  digest. 

It  has  to  do  with  all  classes  of  society,  for  if  it  presides  over 
the  banquets  of  assembled  kings,  it  calculates  the  number  of  min¬ 
utes  of  ebullition  which  an  egg  requires. 

The  material  of  gastronomy  is  all  that  may  be  eaten ;  its 
object  is  direct,  the  preservation  of  individuals.  Its  means  of 
execution  are  cultivation,  which  produces;  commerce,  which  ex¬ 
changes;  industry,  which  prepares;  and  experience,  which  teaches 
us  to  put  them  to  the  best  use. 

Gastronomy  considers  taste  in  its  pleasures  and  in  its  pains. 
It  has  discovered  the  gradual  excitements  of  which  it  is  sus¬ 
ceptible;  it  regularizes  its  action,  and  has  fixed  limits  which  a 
man  who  respects  himself  will  never  pass. 

It  also  considers  the  action  of  food  or  ailments  on  the  morals 
of  man,  on  his  imagination,  his  mind,  his  judgment,  his  courage, 
and  his  perceptions,  whether  he  is  awake,  sleeps,  acts,  or  reposes. 

Gastronomy  determines  the  degree  of  esculence  of  every  ali¬ 
mentary  subject;  all  are  not  presentable  under  the  same  circum¬ 
stances. 

Some  cannot  be  eaten  until  they  are  entirely  developed.  Others 
such  as  capers,  asparagus,  sucking  pigs,  squabs,  and  the  like  are 
eaten  only  when  they  are  young. 

Others,  as  soon  as  they  have  reached  all  the  perfection  to 
which  they  are  destined,  like  melons,  fruit,  mutton,  beef,  and 
grown  animals.  Others  when  they  begin  to  decompose,  such  as 
snipe,  woodcock,  and  pheasant.  Others  not  until  cooking  has 
destroyed  all  their  injurious  properties,  such  as  the  potato,  manioc, 
and  other  substances. 

Gastronomy  classifies  all  of  these  substances  according  to  their 
qualities,  and  indicates  those  which  will  mingle,  and,  measuring 
the  quantity  of  nourishment  they  contain,  distinguishes  those 
which  should  make  the  basis  of  our  repast  from  those  which  are 
only  accessories,  and  others  which,  though  not  necessary,  are  an 
agreeable  relief  and  become  the  obligato  accompaniment  of  con¬ 
vivial  gossip. 

It  takes  no  less  interest  in  the  beverages  intended  for  us,  ac¬ 
cording  to  time,  place,  and  climate.  It  teaches  their  preparation 
and  preservation,  and  especially  presents  them  in  an  order  so 


544 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIN 


exactly  calculated,  that  the  pleasure  perpetually  increases,  until 
gratification  ends  and  abuse  begins. 

Gastronomy  examines  men  and  things  for  the  purpose  of 
transporting,  from  one  country  to  another,  all  that  deserves  to  be 
known,  and  which  causes  a  well-arranged  entertainment,  to  be 
an  abridgment  of  the  world  in  which  each  portion  is  represented. 

Gastronomical  knowledge  is  necessary  to  all  men,  for  it  tends 
to  augment  the  sum  of  happiness.  This  utility  becomes  the 
greater  in  proportion  as  it  is  used  by  the  more  comfortable  classes 
of  society;  it  is  indispensable  to  those  who  have  large  incomes, 
and  entertain  a  great  deal,  either  because  in  this  respect  they 
discharge  an  obligation,  follow  their  own  inclination,  or  yield  to 
fashion. 

They  have  this  special  advantage,  that  they  take  personal 
pleasure  in  the  manner  their  table  is  kept;  they  can,  to  a  certain 
point,  superintend  the  depositories  of  their  confidence,  and  even 
on  many  occasions  direct  them. 

The  Prince  de  Soubise  once  intended  to  give  an  entertainment, 
and  asked  for  the  bill  of  fare. 

The  maitre  d'hotel  came  with  a  list  surrounded  by  vignettes, 
and  the  first  article  that  met  the  Prince’s  eye  was  fifty  hams. 

Bertrand, ”  said  the  Prince,  <(  I  think  you  must  be  extravagant; 
fifty  hams!  Do  you  intend  to  feast  my  whole  regiment  ?  ” 

<(  No,  Prince,  there  will  be  but  one  on  the  table,  and  the  sur¬ 
plus  I  need  for  my  epagnole ,  my  blonds ,  garnitures,  etc.” 

<(  Bertrand,  you  are  robbing  me.  This  article  will  not  do.” 

(<  Monseigneur,”  said  the  artist;  <(  you  do  not  appreciate  me! 
Give  the  order,  and  I  will  put  those  fifty  hams  in  a  crystal  flask 
no  longer  than  my  thumb.  ” 

What  could  be  said  to  such  a  positive  operation  ?  The  Prince 
smiled,  and  the  hams  were  passed. 

In  men  not  far  removed  from  a  state  of  nature,  it  is  well 
known  that  all  important  affairs  are  discussed  at  their  feasts. 
Amid  their  festivals  savages  decide  on  war  and  peace;  we  need 
not  go  far  to  know  that  villages  decide  on  all  public  affairs  at 
the  cabaret. 

This  observation  has  not  escaped  those  to  whom  the  weighti¬ 
est  affairs  are  often  confided.  They  saw  that  a  full-stomached 
individual  was  very  different  from  a  fasting  one;  that  the  table 
established  a  kind  of  alliance  between  the  parties,  and  made 
guests  more  apt  to  receive  certain  impressions  and  submit  to 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIM 


545 


certain  influences.  This  was  the  origin  of  political  gastronomy. 
Entertainments  have  become  governmental  measures,  and  the 
fate  of  nations  is  decided  on  at  a  banquet.  This  is  neither  a 
paradox  nor  a  novelty,  but  a  simple  observation  of  fact.  Open 
every  historian,  from  the  time  of  Herodotus  to  our  own  days,  and 
it  will  be  seen  that,  not  even  excepting  conspiracies,  no  great 
event  ever  took  place,  not  conceived,  prepared,  and  arranged  at  a 
festival. 

Such,  at  the  first  glance,  appears  to  be  the  domain  of  gastron¬ 
omy,  a  realm  fertile  in  results  of  every  kind  and  which  is  ag¬ 
grandized  by  the  discoveries  and  inventions  of  those  who  cultivate 
it.  It  is  certain  that  before  the  lapse  of  many  years,  gastronomy 
will  have  its  academicians,  courses,  professors,  and  premiums. 

At  first  some  rich  and  zealous  gastronomer  will  establish  peri¬ 
odical  assemblies,  in  which  the  most  learned  theorists  will  unite 
with  artists,  to  discuss  and  measure  the  various  branches  of  ali¬ 
mentation. 

Soon  (such  is  the  history  of  all  academies)  the  government 
will  intervene,  will  regularize,  protect,  and  institute;  it  will  seize 
the  opportunity  to  reward  the  people  for  all  orphans  made  by 
war,  for  all  the  Arianas  whose  tears  have  been  evoked  by  the 
drum. 

Happy  will  be  the  depository  of  power  who  will  attach  his 
name  to  this  necessary  institution!  His  name  will  be  repeated 
from  age  to  age  with  that  of  Noah,  Bacchus,  Triptolemus,  and 
other  benefactors  of  humanity;  he  will  be  among  ministers  what 
Henry  IV.  was  among  kings;  his  eulogy  will  be  in  every  mouth, 
though  no  regulation  make  it  a  necessity. 

Complete.  Meditation  III.  from  <(The  Physiology 
of  Taste. »  Robinson’s  Translation. 


ON  DEATH 

<(  Omnia  mors  poscit ;  lex  est,  non  poena  perireP 

God  has  subjected  man  to  six  great  necessities:  birth,  action, 
eating,  sleep,  reproduction,  and  death. 

Death  is  the  absolute  interruption  of  the  sensual  rela¬ 
tions,  and  the  absolute  annihilation  of  the  vital  powers,  which 
abandons  the  body  to  the  laws  of  decomposition, 
n— 35 


546 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIN 


These  necessities  are  all  accompanied  and  softened  by  a  sen¬ 
sation  of  pleasure;  and  even  death,  when  natural,  is  not  without 
charms.  We  mean  when  a  man  has  passed  through  the  different 
phases  of  growth,  virility,  old  age,  and  decrepitude. 

Had  I  not  determined  to  make  this  <(  meditation  ®  very  short, 
I  would  invoke  the  assistance  of  the  physicians,  who  have  ob¬ 
served  every  shade  of  the  transition  of  a  living  to  an  inert  body, 
I  would  quote  philosophers,  kings,  men  of  letters,  men,  who,  while 
on  the  verge  of  eternity,  had  pleasant  thoughts  they  decked  in 
the  graces;  I  would  recall  the  dying  answer  of  Fontenelle,  who 
being  asked  what  he  felt,  said,  (<  Nothing  but  the  pain  of  life  >:> ,  I 
prefer,  however,  merely  to  express  my  opinion,  founded  on  anal¬ 
ogy  as  sustained  by  many  instances,  of  which  the  following  is  the 
last : — 


I  had  a  great  aunt,  aged  eighty-three  when  she  died.  Though 
she  had  long  been  confined  to  her  bed,  she  preserved  all  her 
faculties,  and  the  approach  of  death  was  perceived  by  the  feeble¬ 
ness  of  her  voice  and  the  failing  of  her  appetite. 

She  had  always  exhibited  great  devotion  to  me,  and  I  sat  by 
her  bedside  anxious  to  attend  on  her.  This,  however,  did  not 
prevent  my  observing  her  with  most  philosophic  attention. 

<(  Are  you  there,  nephew  ? })  said  she  in  an  almost  inaudible 
voice. 

<(Yes,  aunt!  I  think  you  would  be  better  if  you  would  takp  a 
little  old  wine.”  \  <(  Give  it  to  me,  liquids  always  run  down.®!  I 
hastened  to  lift  her  up  and  gave  her  half  a  glass  of  my  best  and 
oldest  wine.  She  revived  for  a  moment  and  said,  I  thank  you. 
If  you  live  as  long  as  I  have  lived,  you  will  find  that  death  like 
sleep  is  a  necessity. w 

These  were  her  last  words,  and  in  half  an  hour  she  had  sunk 
to  sleep  forever. 

Richeraud  has  described  with  so  much  truth  the  gradations 
of  the  human  body,  and  the  last  moments  of  the  individual,  that 
my  readers  will  be  obliged  to  me  for  preceding  passage:- 

Thus  the  intellectual  faculties  are  decomposed  and  pass  away. 
Reason,  the  attribute  of  which  man  pretends  to  be  the  exclusive 
possessor,  first  deserts  him.  He  then  loses  the  power  of  combin¬ 
ing  his  judgment,  and  soon  after  that jof  comparing,  assembling, 
combining,  and  joining  together  many  ideas.  They  say  then 
that  the  invalid  loses  his  mind;  that  he  is  delirious.  All  this 
usually  rests  on  ideas  familiar  to  the  individual.  The  dominant 


ANTHELME  BRILLAT-SAVARIN 


547 


passion  is  easily  recognized.  The  miser  talks  most  wildly  about 
his  treasures,  and  another  person  is  besieged  by  religious  terrors. 

After  reasoning  and  judgment,  the  faculty  of  association  be¬ 
comes  lost.  This  takes  place  in  the  cases  known  as  def alliances, 
to  which  I  have  myself  been  liable.  I  was  once  talking  with  a 
friend  and  met  with  an  insurmountable  difficulty  in  combining 
two  ideas  from  which  I  wished  to  make  up  an  opinion.  The 
syncope  was  not,  however,  complete,  for  memory  and  sensation 
remained.  I  heard  the  persons  around  me  say  distinctly,  He  is 
fainting,  and  sought  to  arouse  me  from  this  condition,  which 
was  not  without  pleasure. 

Memory  then  becomes  extinct.  The  patient  who  in  his  de¬ 
lirium  recognized  his  friends  now  fails  even  to  know  those  with 
whom  he  had  been  on  terms  of  the  greatest  intimacy.  He  then 
loses  sensation,  but  the  senses  go  out  in  a  successive  and  de¬ 
terminate  order.  Taste  and  smell  give  no  evidence  of  their 
existence,  the  eyes  become  covered  with  a  mistful  veil  and  the 
ear  ceases  to  execute  its  functions.  For  that  reason  the  Ancients, 
to  be  sure  of  the  reality  of  death,  used  to  utter  loud  cries  in  the 
ears  of  the  dying.  He  neither  tastes,  sees,  nor  hears.  He  yet 
retains  the  sense  of  touch,  moves  in  his  bed,  changes  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  the  arms  and  body  every  moment,  and  has  motions  anal¬ 
ogous  to  those  of  the  child  yet  unborn.  Death  affects  him  with 
no  terror,  for  he  has  no  ideas,  and  he  ends  life  as  unconsciously 
as  he  began  it. 

Complete.  Meditation  XXVI.  from  (<The 
Physiology  of  Taste. w 


54^ 


HENRY  BROOKE 

(1703-1783) 

enry  Brooke,  dramatist,  novelist,  and  essayist,  was  born  in 
County  Cavan,  Ireland,  in  1703  (1706  according  to  some  au¬ 
thorities).  After  graduating  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  he 
studied  law  and  settled  in  London  to  practice,  but  it  does  not  appear 
that  his  literary  work  left  him  much  time  to  do  so.  Besides  <(  The 
Fool  of  Quality, ®  in  five  volumes,  and  other  novels,  he  wrote  thirteen 
tragedies,  and  occasional  poems.  Pope  and  Swift  gave  him  their 
friendship  and  patronage,  and  he  was  popular  with  what  was  then 
the  aristocracy  of  letters.  His  novels  and  dramas  are  only  read  now 

by  the  curious,  but  such  essays  as  (<What  is  a  Gentleman  ?w  are  sure 

* 

to  remain  popular  with  readers  of  all  classes. 


WHAT  IS  A  GENTLEMAN? 

There  is  no  term  in  our  language  more  common  than  that  of 
(<  Gentleman  ® ;  and  whenever  it  is  heard,  all  agree  in  the 
general  idea  of  a  man  in  some  way  elevated  above  the  vul¬ 
gar.  Yet  perhaps  no  two  living  are  precisely  agreed  respecting 
the  qualities  they  think  requisite  for  constituting  this  character. 
When  we  hear  the  epithets  of  a  “fine  gentleman,  ®  <(a  pretty 
gentleman, w  (<much  of  a  gentleman,  ®  <(  gentlemanlike, })  (<  some¬ 
thing  of  a  gentleman, ®  <(  nothing  of  a  gentleman,  ®  and  so  forth, 
all  these  different  appellations  must  intend  a  peculiarity  annexed 
to  the  ideas  of  those  who  express  them;  though  no  two  of  them, 
as  I  said,  may  agree  in  the  constituent  qualities  of  the  character 
they  have  formed  in  their  own  minds.  There  have  been  ladies 
who  deemed  a  bagwig,  tasseled  waistcoat,  new-fashioned  snuff 
box,  and  a  sword  knot  very  capital  ingredients  in  the  composition 
of  —  a  gentleman.  A  certain  easy  impudence  acquired  by  low 
people,  by  casually  being  conversant  in  high  life,  has  passed  a 
man  current  through  many  companies  for  —  a  gentleman.  In  the 
country,  a  laced  hat  and  long  whip  make  —  a  gentleman.  In 
taverns  and  some  other  places,  he  who  is  the  most  of  a  bully  is 


HENRY  BROOKE 


549 


the  most  of  —  a  gentleman.  With  heralds,  every  esquire  is  in¬ 
disputably —  a  gentleman.  And  the  highwayman,  in  his  manner 
of  taking  your  purse;  and  your  friend,  in  his  manner  of  deceiv¬ 
ing  your  wife,  may,  however,  be  allowed  to  have  —  much  of  the 
gentleman.  Plato,  among  the  philosophers,  was  ((the  most  of  a 
man  of  fashion, ®  and  therefore  allowed,  at  the  court  of  Syracuse, 
to  be  —  the  most  of  a  gentleman.  But,  seriously,  I  apprehend 
that  this  character  is  pretty  much  upon  the  modern.  In  all  an¬ 
cient  or  dead  languages  we  have  no  term,  any  way  adequate, 
whereby  we  may  express  it.  In  the  habits,  manners,  and  charac¬ 
ters  of  old  Sparta  and  old  Rome,  we  find  an  antipathy  to  all  the 
elements  of  modern  gentility.  Among  those  rude  and  unpolished 
people  you  read  of  philosophers,  of  orators,  patriots,  heroes,  and 
demigods;  but  you  never  hear  of  any  character  so  elegant  as  that 
of  —  a  pretty  gentleman. 

When  those  nations,  however,  became  refined  into  what  their 
ancestors  would  have  called  corruption;  when  luxury  introduced, 
and  fashion  gave  a  sanction  to  certain  sciences  which  cynics 
would  have  branded  with  the  ill-mannered  appellations  of  de¬ 
bauchery,  drunkenness,  gambling,  cheating,  lying,  etc.,  the  practi¬ 
tioners  assumed  the  new  title  of  gentlemen,  till  such  gentlemen 
became  as  plenteous  as  stars  in  the  milky  way,  and  lost  distinc¬ 
tion  merely  by  the  confluence  of  their  lustre.  Wherefore  as  the 
said  qualities  were  found  to  be  of  ready  acquisition  and  of  easy 
descent  to  the  populace  from  their  betters,  ambition  judged  it 
necessary  to  add  further  marks  and  criterions  for  severing  the 
general  herd  from  the  nobler  species  —  of  gentlemen. 

Accordingly,  if  the  commonalty  were  observed  to  have  a  pro¬ 
pensity  to  religion,  their  superiors  affected  a  disdain  of  such 
vulgar  prejudices;  and  a  freedom  that  cast  off  the  restraints  of 
morality,  and  a  courage  that  spurned  at  the  fear  of  a  God,  were 
accounted  the  distinguishing  characteristics  —  of  a  gentleman. 

If  the  populace,  as  in  China,  were  industrious  and  ingenious, 
the  grandees,  by  the  length  of  their  nails  and  the  cramping  of 
their  limbs,  gave  evidence  that  true  dignity  was  above  labor  and 
utility,  and  that  to  be  born  to  no  end  was  the  prerogative  —  of  a 
gentleman. 

If  the  common  sort,  by  their  conduct,  declared  a  respect  for 
the  institutions  of  civil  society  and  good  government,  their  betters 
despise  such  pusillanimous  conformity,  and  the  magistrates  pay 


55° 


HENRY  BROOKE 


becoming  regard  to  the  distinction,  and  allow  of  the  superior 
liberties  and  privileges  —  of  a  gentleman. 

If  the  lower  set  show  a  sense  of  common  honesty  and  com¬ 
mon  order,  those  who  would  figure  in  the  world  think  it  in¬ 
cumbent  to  demonstrate  that  complaisance  to  inferiors,  common 
manners,  common  equity,  or  anything  common,  is  quite  beneath 
the  attention  or  sphere — of  a  gentleman. 

Now,  as  underlings  are  ever  ambitious  of  imitating  and  usurp¬ 
ing  the  manners  of  their  superiors;  and  as  this  state  of  mortality 
is  incident  to  perpetual  change  and  revolution,  it  may  happen 
that  when  the  populace,  by  encroaching  on  the  province  of  gen¬ 
tility,  have  arrived  at  their  ne  plus  ultra  of  insolence,  debauch¬ 
ery,  irreligion,  etc.,  the  gentry,  in  order  to  be  again  distinguished, 
may  assume  the  station  that  their  inferiors  had  forsaken,  and, 
however  ridiculous  the  supposition  may  appear  at  present,  human¬ 
ity,  equity,  utility,  complaisance,  and  piety  may  in  time  come  to 
be  the  distinguishing  characteristics  —  of  a  gentleman. 

It  appears  that  the  most  general  idea  which  people  have 
formed  of  a  gentleman  is  that  of  a  person  of  fortune  above  the 
vulgar,  and  embellished  by  manners  that  are  fashionable  in  high 
life.  In  this  case,  fortune  and  fashion  are  the  two  constituent 
ingredients  in  the  composition  of  modern  gentlemen;  for  what¬ 
ever  the  fashion  may  be,  whether  moral  or  immoral,  for  or 
against  reason,  right  or  wrong,  it  is  equally  the  duty  of  a  gen¬ 
tleman  to  conform.  And  yet  I  apprehend  that  true  gentility  is 
altogether  independent  of  fortune  or  fashion,  of  time,  customs,  or 
opinions  of  any  kind.  The  very  same  qualities  that  constituted 
a  gentleman  in  the  first  age  of  the  world  are  permanently,  inva¬ 
riably,  and  indispensably  necessary  to  the  constitution  of  the 
same  character  to  the  end  of  time. 

Hector  was  the  finest  gentleman  of  whom  we  read  in  history, 
and  Don  Quixote  the  finest  gentleman  we  read  of  in  romance, 
as  was  instanced  from  the  tenor  of  their  principles  and  actions. 

Some  time  after  the  battle  of  Cressy,  Edward  III.  of  England, 
and  Edward  the  Black  Prince,  the  more  than  heir  of  his  father’s 
renown,  pressed  John,  King  of  France,  to  indulge  them  with  the 
pleasure  of  his  company  at  London.  John  was  desirous  of  em¬ 
bracing  the  invitation,  and  accordingly  laid  the  proposal  before 
his  Parliament  at  Paris.  The  Parliament  objected  that  the  invi¬ 
tation  had  been  made  with  an  insidious  design  of  seizing  his 


HENRY  BROOKE 


551 


person,  thereby  to  make  the  cheaper  and  easier  acquisition  of  the 
crown,  to  which  Edward  at  that  time  pretended.  But  John  re¬ 
plied,  with  some  warmth,  that  he  was  confident  his  brother  Ed¬ 
ward,  and  more  especially  his  young  cousin,  were  too  much  of 
the  gentleman  to  treat  him  in  that  manner.  He  did  not  say  too 
much  of  the  king,  of  the  hero,  or  of  the  saint,  but  too  much  of 
the  gentleman  to  be  guilty  of  any  baseness. 

The  sequel  verified  this  opinion.  At  the  battle  of  Poitiers 
King  John  was  made  prisoner,  and  soon  after  conducted  by  the 
Black  Prince  to  England.  The  prince  entered  London  in  tri¬ 
umph,  amid  the  throng  and  acclamations  of  millions  of  the  peo¬ 
ple.  But  then  this  rather  appeared  to  be  the  triumph  of  the 
French  king  than  that  of  his  conqueror.  John  was  seated  on  a 
proud  steed,  royally  robed,  and  attended  by  a  numerous  and  gor¬ 
geous  train  of  the  British  nobility;  while  his  conqueror  endeav¬ 
ored,  as  much  as  possible,  to  disappear,  and  rode  by  his  side  in 
plain  attire,  and  degradingly  seated  on  a  little  Irish  hobby. 

As  Aristotle  and  the  critics  derived  their  rules  for  epic  poetry 
and  the  sublime  from  a  poem  which  Homer  had  written  long 
before  the  rules  were  formed,  or  laws  established  for  the  pur¬ 
pose;  thus,  from  the  demeanor  and  innate  principles  of  particu¬ 
lar  gentlemen,  art  has  borrowed  and  instituted  the  many  modes 
of  behavior  which  the  world  has  adopted  under  the  title  of  good 
manners. 

Human  excellence,  or  human  amiableness,  doth  not  so  much 
consist  in  a  freedom  from  frailty,  as  in  our  recovery  from  lapses, 
our  detestation  of  our  own  transgressions,  and  our  desire  of  aton¬ 
ing,  by  all  possible  means,  the  injuries  we  have  done  and  the 
offenses  we  have  given.  Herein  therefore  may  consist  the  very 
singular  distinction  which  the  great  Apostle  makes  between  his 
estimation  of  a  just  and  of  a  good  man.  (<  For  a  just  or  right¬ 
eous  man, ”  says  he,  (<  one  would  grudge  to  die ;  but  for  a  good  man 
one  would  even  dare  to  die.”  Here  the  just  man  is  supposed  to 
adhere  strictly  to  the  rule  of  right  or  equity,  and  to  exact  from 
others  the  same  measure  that  he  is  satisfied  to  mete;  but  the 
good  man,  though  occasionally  he  may  fall  short  of  justice,  has, 
properly  speaking,  no  measure  to  his  benevolence;  his  general 
propensity  is  to  give  more  than  the  due.  The  just  man  con¬ 
demns,  and  is  desirous  of  punishing  the  transgressors  of  the  line 
prescribed  to  himself;  but  the  good  man,  in  the  sense  of  his  own 


552 


HENRY  BROOKE 


falls  and  failings,  gives  latitude,  indulgence,  and  pardon  to  others; 
he  judges,  he  condemns  no  one  save  himself.  The  just  man  is 
a  stream  that  deviates  not,  to  the  right  or  left,  from  its  appointed 
channel,  neither  is  swelled  by  the  flood  of  passion  above  its 
banks;  but  the  heart  of  the  good  man,  the  man  of  honor,  the 
gentleman,  is  as  a  lamp  lighted  by  the  breath  of  God,  and  none 
save  God  himself  can  set  limits  to  the  efflux  or  irradiations 
thereof. 


NAPOLEON  RECEIVING  % HE  PORTEA  IE 

A f ter  the  Painting  of .  II.  Bellangc. 


553 


LORD  BROUGHAM 

(Henry  Brougham,  Baron  Brougham  and  Vaux) 

(1778-1868) 


N  oratory,  statesmanship,  science,  atftd  literature,  Lord  Broug¬ 
ham  aspired  to  the  high  excellence  which  even  the  greatest 
minds  attain  only  as  a  result  of  singleness  of  purpose.  Yet 


he  did  not  fail  in  anything  and  if  unfortunately  he  stopped  short  of 
the  highest  excellence  in  everything,  it  was  only  after  showing  that 
it  would  have  been  possible  for  his  genius  had  it  been  so  for  his 
persistence.  With  the  versatility  of  Cicero,  he  had  the  Ciceronian 
vanity  to  which  the  love  of  rectitude  offers  no  sufficient  stimulus  ex¬ 
cept  as  it  offers  the  possibility  of  excellence.  Had  he  been  as  anxious 
for  his  work  to  be  the  best  as  he  was  for  it  to  be  the  highest, 
Brougham  might  have  been  in  some  one  of  the  fields  in  which  he 
succeeded,  the  greatest  man  of  the  century.  As  it  was,  he  was 
really  a  great  orator,  who  lacked  only  a  little  of  being  the  greatest 
of  England.  In  literature,  he  has  written  essays  and  studies  of  char¬ 
acter,  which,  though  they  are  now  neglected,  are  certain  of  perma¬ 
nent  survival.  I11  statesmanship,  if  he  did  less  than  his  best,  he 
made  himself  so  effective  that  he  is  unmistakably  the  last  of  the 
English  Whig  statesmen,  who  believed  with  Hampden  and  Locke 
in  liberty  as  a  supreme  good,  without  which  literature,  art,  science, 
and  dominion  are  incapable  of  working  out  the  destinies  of  the  race. 

Brougham  was  born  in  Edinburgh,  September  19th,  1778,  and 
educated  at  the  university  of  his  native  city.  He  founded  or  helped 
to  found  the  Edinburgh  Review  in  1802,  and  is  the  reputed  au¬ 
thor  of  the  attack  on  Byron  which  provoked  (<  English  Bards  and 
Scotch  Reviewers ®  as  a  reply.  After  entering  Parliament  in  1810  his 
great  success  as  an  orator  decided  that  his  was  not  to  be  distinc¬ 
tively  a  literary  career.  His  great  oratorical  victory  in  the  defense 
of  Queen  Caroline  assured  him  Whig  leadership.  He  became  Lord 
Chancellor  in  1830  and  held  office  until  the  Whig  defeat  of  1834  re¬ 
tired  him.  In  politics  he  was  the  effective  champion  of  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  of  popular  sovereignty  in  elections,  and  of  nonintervention 
and  peaceful  co-operation  among  nations.  His  miscellaneous  writings 
make  eleven  volumes,  but  he  will  be  remembered  in  literature  chiefly 
bv  his  (<  Statesmen  of  the  Time  of  George  III.®  —  a  series  of  essays 
and  character  sketches  which  frequently  shew  literary  merit  of  a 
very  high  order. 


554 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  DANTON 

A  man  of  Robespierre’s  character,  and  with  his  great  defects 
as  a  revolutionary  chief,  may  be  able  to  raise  himself  in 
troublous  times  to  great  eminence,  and  possibly  even  to 
usurp  supreme  power,  but  he  never  can  take  the  lead  in  bring¬ 
ing  great  changes  about;  he  never  can  be  a  maker  of  the  revo¬ 
lutions  by  which  however  he  may  profit.  His  rise  to  distinction 
and  command  may  be  gained  by  perseverance,  by  self-denial,  by 
extreme  circumspection,  by  having  no  scruples  to  interfere  with 
his  schemes,  no  conscience  to  embarrass,  no  feelings  to  scare  him ; 
above  all,  by  taking  advantage  of  circumstances,  and  turning  each 
occurrence  that  happens  to  his  account.  These  qualities  and  this 
policy  may  even  enable  him  to  retain  the  power  which  they 
have  enabled  him  to  grasp;  but  another  nature  and  other  endow¬ 
ments  are  required,  and  must  be  added  to  these,  in  order  to  form 
a  man  fitted  for  raising  the  tempest,  and  directing  its  fury 
against  the  established  order  of  things.  Above  all,  boldness,  the 
daring  soul,  the  callous  nerves,  the  mind  inaccessible  to  fear,  and 
impervious  to  the  mere  calculations  of  personal  prudence,  almost 
a  blindness  sealing  his  eyes  against  the  perception  of  conse¬ 
quences  as  well  to  himself  as  to  others,  is  the  requisite  of  his 
nature  who  would  overturn  an  ancient  system  of  polity,  and  sub¬ 
stitute  a  novel  regimen  in  its  place.  For  this  Robespierre  was 
wholly  unfit;  and  if  any  man  can  more  than  another  be  termed 
the  author  of  the  French  Revolution,  it  is  Dan  ton,  who  possessed 
these  requisites  in  perfection. 

There  can  hardly  a  greater  contrast  be  found  between  two 
individuals  than  that  which  this  remarkable  person  presented  in 
all  respects  to  Robespierre.  His  nature  was  dauntless;  his  tem¬ 
per  mild  and  frank;  his  disposition  sociable;  naturally  rather  kind 
and  merciful,  his  feelings  were  only  blunted  to  scenes  of  cruelty 
by  his  enthusiasm,  which  was  easily  kindled  in  favor  of  any 
great  object;  and  even  when  he  had  plunged  into  bloodshed,  none 
of  the  chiefs  who  directed  those  sad  proceedings  ever  saved  so 
many  victims  from  the  tempest  of  destruction  which  their  machi¬ 
nations  had  let  loose.  Nor  was  there  anything  paltry  and  mean 
in  his  conduct  on  these  occasions,  either  as  to  the  slaughters 
which  he  encouraged  or  the  lives  which  he  saved.  No  one  has 
ever  charged  him  with  sacrificing  any  to  personal  animosity,  like 
Robespierre  and  Collot  d’Herhois,  whose  adversaries  fell  before 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


555 


the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  or  those  against  whom  offended  van¬ 
ity  made  them  bear  a  spite;  and  it  is  certain  that  he  used  his 
influence  in  procuring  the  escape  of  many  who  had  proved  his 
personal  enemies.  His  retreat  to  Arcis-sur-Aube,  after  his  refusal 
to  enter  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and  finally  his  self- 
sacrifice  by  protesting  against  the  sanguinary  course  of  that  ter¬ 
rible  power,  leave  no  doubt  whatever  resting  upon  his  general 
superiority  in  character  and  in  feelings  to  almost  all  the  other 
chiefs. 

His  natural  endowments  were  great  for  any  part  in  public 
life,  whether  at  the  bar  or  in  the  senate,  or  even  in  war;  for  the 
part  of  a  revolutionary  leader  they  were  of  the  highest  order.  A 
courage  which  nothing  could  quell;  a  quickness  of  perception  at 
once  and  clearly  to  perceive  his  own  opportunity,  and  his  adver¬ 
sary’s  error;  singular  fertility  of  resources,  with  the  power  of 
sudden  change  in  his  course,  and  adaptation  to  varied  circum¬ 
stances;  a  natural  eloquence  springing  from  the  true  source  of 
all  eloquence  —  warm  feelings,  fruitful  imagination,  powerful  rea¬ 
son,  the  qualities  that  distinguish  it  from  the  mere  rhetorician’s 
art, — but  an  eloquence  hardy,  caustic,  masculine;  a  mighty  frame 
of  body;  a  voice  overpowering  all  resistance;  these  were  the 
grand  qualities  which  Danton  brought  to  the  prodigious  struggle 
in  which  he  was  engaged;  and  ambition  and  enthusiasm  could, 
for  the  moment,  deaden  within  him  those  kindlier  feelings  which 
would  have  impeded  or  encumbered  his  progress  to  eminence 
and  to  power.  That  he  was  extremely  zealous  for  the  great 
change  which  he  so  essentially  promoted  cannot  admit  of  a 
doubt;  and  there  is  no  reason  whatever  for  asserting  that  his 
ambition,  or  any  personal  motive,  overtopped  his  honest  though 
exaggerated  enthusiasm.  The  zeal  of  Saint  Just  and  Camille 
Desmoulins  was,  in  all  probability,  as  sincere  as  Danton’s;  but 
they,  especially  Saint  Just,  suffered  personal  feelings  to  interfere 
with  it,  and  control  their  conduct  to  a  very  much  greater  extent; 
and  their  memory,  especially  Saint  Just’s,  is  exposed  to  far  more 
reproach  for  their  conduct  in  the  bloody  scenes  to  which  the 
Revolution  gave  birth. 

The  speeches  of  Danton  were  marked  by  a  fire,  an  animation, 
very  different  from  anything  that  we  find  in  those  of  Robespierre, 
and  the  other  leaders  of  the  Revolution,  except  perhaps  Isnard, 
the  most  ardent  of  them  all.  In  Danton’s  eloquence  there  ap¬ 
pears  no  preparation,  no  study,  nothing  got  up  for  mere  effect. 


556 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


We  have  the  whole  heart  of  the  man  poured  forth;  and  accord¬ 
ingly  he  rises  upon  any  incidental  interruption,  and  is  never  con¬ 
founded  by  any  tumult  or  any  attack.  In  one  particular,  as  might 
be  expected  from  his  nature,  he  stands  single  among  the  great 
speakers  of  either  France  or  England  —  the  shortness  of  his 
speeches.  They  are,  indeed,  harangues  prompted  by  the  occasion. 
And  we  never  lose  the  man  of  action  in  the  orator. 

A  charge  of  corruption  has  often  been  brought  against  Dan- 
ton,  but  upon  very  inadequate  grounds.  The  assertion  of  Royal¬ 
ist  partisans  that  he  had  stipulated  for  money,  and  the  statement 
of  one  that  he  knew  of  its  payment,  and  had  seen  the  receipt 
(as  if  the  receipt  could  have  passed),  can  signify  really  nothing, 
when  put  in  contrast  with  the  known  facts  of  his  living,  through¬ 
out  his  short  public  career,  in  narrow  circumstances,  and  of  his 
family  being  left  so  destitute  that  his  sons  are  at  this  day  lead¬ 
ing  the  lives  of  peasants,  or,  at  most,  of  humble  yeomen,  and 
cultivating  for  their  support  a  small  paternal  farm  in  his  native 
parish.  The  difference  between  his  habits  and  those  of  the  other 
great  leaders  gave  rise  to  the  rumors  against  his  purity.  He 
was  almost  the  only  one  whose  life  was  not  strictly  ascetic. 
Without  being  a  debauched  man,  he  indulged  in  sensual  pleas¬ 
ures  far  more  than  comported  with  the  rigid  republican  charac¬ 
ter;  and  this  formed  one  of  the  charges  which,  often  repeated  at 
a  time  when  a  fanatical  republicanism  had  engendered  a  puritan 
morality,  enabled  Robespierre,  himself  above  all  suspicion  of  the 
kind,  to  work  his  downfall. 

The  patriarchs  of  the  revolution,  who  till  late  survived,  and 
whom  I  knew,  such  as  M.  Lakanal,  always  held  Danton  to  be 
identified  with  the  revolution,  and  its  principal  leader.  In  fact 
the  10th  of  August,  which  overthrew  the  monarchy,  was  his 
peculiar  work.  He  prepared  the  movement,  headed  the  body  of 
his  section  (the  Cordeliers)  in  their  march  first  through  the  As¬ 
sembly,  demanding,  with  threats  of  instant  violence,  the  King’s 
deposition,  then  attacking  the  palace  to  enforce  their  requisition. 
When,  soon  after  that  memorable  day,  the  Prussians  were  ad¬ 
vancing  upon  Paris,  and  in  the  general  consternation  the  Assem¬ 
bly  was  resolved  to  retreat  behind  the  Loire,  he  alone  retained 
his  imperturbable  presence  of  mind,  and  prevented  a  movement 
which  must  have  proved  fatal,  because  it  would  have  delivered 
over  Paris  to  the  Royalists  and  the  allied  armies.  The  darkest 
page  in  his  history,  however,  swiftly  follows  his  greatest  glory. 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


557 


He  was  minister  of  Justice  during-  the  dreadful  massacre  of  Sep¬ 
tember,  and  he  was  very  far  from  exerting  his  power  to  protect 
the  wretched  victims  of  mob  fury.  On  that  occasion  was  pro¬ 
nounced  his  famous  speech  already  cited  on  the  necessity  of  bold 
measures  —  a  speech  by  which  he  was  long  known,  and  will  be 
long  remembered,  throughout  all  Europe.  Other  traits  of  his. 
vehement  nature  are  still  recorded.  When  interrogated  at  his 
trial,  his  answer  was,  (< Je  m'appelle  Danton;  mon  sejour  sera  bien- 
tot  le  neant;  mon  nom  vivra  dans  le  pantheon  de  I'histoireP 
When  taking  leave  of  his  young  and  fair  wife,  and  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  melted  to  the  use  of  some  such  expressions  as,  “Oh,  ma 
bien  aimee!  faut-il  que  je  te  quitte  ?  M  —  suddenly  recovering  him¬ 
self,  he  exclaimed,  (t  Danton,  point  de  faiblesse!  A  lions  en  avant  /* 
—  And  the  same  bold  front  was  maintained  to  the  end.  His 
murder  was  the  knell  of  Robespierre’s  fate;  and  while  choked 
with  rage  on  his  own  accusation,  and  unable  to  make  himself 
heard,  a  voice  exclaimed,  (< C’est  le  sang  de  Danton  qui  t'etouffe!  J> 
It  is  the  blood  of  Danton  that  chokes  you!  But  it  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted  to  have  been  a  fine,  a  just,  and  an  impressive  lesson 
which,  goaded  by  the  taunt,  the  tyrant,  collecting  his  exhausted 
strength  for  a  last  effort,  delivered  to  his  real  accomplices,  the 
pusillanimous  creatures  who  had  not  dared  to  raise  a  hand,  or 
even  a  voice,  against  Danton’s  murder — (< Laches l  que  ne  le  de~ 
fendiez-vous  done  ?  *  Cowards !  then  why  did  you  not  defend 
him  ?  On  the  scaffold,  where  Danton  retained  his  courage  and 
proud  self-possession  to  the  last,  the  executioner  cruelly  and  fool¬ 
ishly  prevented  him  from  embracing  for  the  last  time  his  friend 
Herault  de  Seychelles,  a  man  of  unsullied  character,  great  ac¬ 
quirements,  and  high  eminence  at  the  bar,  as  well  as  of  noble 
blood.  <(  Fool!  w  exclaimed  Danton  indignantly,  and  with  the  bit¬ 
ter  smile  of  scorn  that  often  marked  his  features ;  <(  Fool !  not  to 
see  that  our  heads  must  in  a  few  seconds  meet  in  that  basket !  • 
The  fall  of  Danton  and  his  faithful  adherent  Camille  has  ever 
been  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  surprising  events  of  the  Revo¬ 
lution.  His  habitual  boldness,  and  the  promptitude  with  which 
he  always  took  and  pursued  his  course,  seems  for  the  moment  to 
have  forsaken  him;  else  surely  he  could  have  anticipated  the  at¬ 
tack  of  the  committee,  which  was  fully  known  beforehand.  The 
Triumvirate  had  become  generally  the  object  of  hatred  and  of 
dread.  The  Gironde,  though  broken  and  dispersed,  and  hostile  to 
Danton,  as  well  as  to  the  other  partisans  of  the  Mountain,  were 


553 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


the  last  men  to  approve  the  course  which  had  been  followed 
since  the  destruction  of  their  leaders,  and  were  anything  but  re¬ 
conciled  to  mob  government,  which  they  had  always  detested  and 
scorned,  by  the  desperate  excesses  to  which  it  had  led.  On  the 
scattered  fragments  of  that  once  powerful  party,  then,  he  might 
well  have  relied.  Even  if  he  was  ignorant  of  the  impatience 
which  Tallien,  Bourdon  de  TOise,  Legendre,  and  others  felt  under 
the  Triumviral  domination,  and  which  the  two  former  had  not 
yet  perhaps  disclosed,  he  never  could  have  omitted  the  considera¬ 
tion  that  some  of  them,  especially  Legendre,  had  before,  and  pre¬ 
maturely,  given  vent  to  their  hostile  feelings  towards  Robespierre, 
and  were  therefore  sure  to  display  them  still  more  decidedly,  now 
that  he  was  so  much  less  powerful,  and  had  so  much  more  richly 
earned  their  aversion.  As  for  the  charges  against  Danton,  they 
were  absolutely  intangible;  the  speech  of  Robespierre,  and  report 
of  Saint  Just,  presented  nothing  like  substantial  grounds  of  accusa¬ 
tion,  even  admitting  all  they  alleged  to  be  proved.  Their  decla¬ 
mation  was  vague  and  puerile,  asserting  no  offense,  but  confined 
to  general  vituperation;  as  that  he  abandoned  the  public  in  times 
of  crises,  partook  of  Brissot’s  calm  and  liberticide  opinions, 
quenched  the  fury  of  true  patriots,  magnified  his  own  worth  and 
that  of  his  adherents;  or  flimsy  and  broad  allegations  of  things 
wholly  incapable  of  proof, —  as  that  all  Europe  was  convinced  of 
Danton  and  Lacroix  having  stipulated  for  royalty,  and  that  he 
had  always  been  friendly  towards  Dumouriez,  Mirabeau,  and 
d’Orleans.  The  proposition  of  Legendre  to  hear  him  before  de¬ 
creeing  his  prosecution  was  rejected  by  acclamation;  and  the 
report  of  Saint  Just  against  him,  though,  by  a  refinement  of  injus¬ 
tice,  as  well  as  an  excess  of  false  rhetoric,  addressed  to  him  in 
one  continual  apostrophe  of  general  abuse  an  hour  long,  was  de¬ 
livered  and  adopted  in  his  absence,  while  he  was  buried  in  the 
dungeons  of  the  state  prison.  The  revolutionary  tribunal,  for 
erecting  which  he  asked  pardon  of  God  and  man,  having  nothing 
like  a  specific  charge  before  them,  much  less  any  evidence  to 
convict,  were  daunted  by  his  eloquence  and  his  courage,  which 
were  beginning  to  make  an  impression  upon  the  public  mind, 
when  the  committees  sent  Saint  Just  down  to  the  Convention  with 
a  second  report,  alleging  a  new  conspiracy,  called  the  Conspira¬ 
tion  des  Prisons, —  an  alleged  design  of  Danton  and  his  party,  then 
in  custody,  to  rush  out  of  the  dungeons,  and  massacre  the  Com¬ 
mittee,  the  Jacobin  Club,  and  the  patriots  in  the  Convention; 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


559 


liberate  young  Capet,  that  is,  Louis  XVII.,  and  place  him  in 
Danton’s  hands.  Upon  this  most  clumsy  fabrication,  every  word 
of  which  refuted  itself,  it  was  at  once  decreed  that  the  tribunal 
should  proceed  summarily,  and  prevent  any  one  of  the  accused 
being  heard  who  should  resist  or  insult  the  national  justice  — 
that  is,  who  should  persist  in  asserting  his  innocence.  Sentence 
and  execution  immediately  followed. 

These  circumstances  make  it  apparent  that  Danton’s  supine¬ 
ness  in  providing  for  his  own  safety  by  attacking  the  Committee 
first,  must  have  proceeded  from  the  ascendant  which  the  Trium¬ 
virate  had  gained  over  his  mind.  Originally  he  had  a  mean 
opinion  of  Robespierre,  holding  him  void  of  the  qualities  which 
a  revolutionary  crisis  demands.  (<  Cet  homme-la  [was  his  phrase] 
ne  saurait  pas  cuire  des  ceitfs  diirsP  That  man  is  not  capable  of 
boiling  eggs  hard.  But  this  opinion  was  afterwards  so  completely 
changed  that  he  was  used  to  say,  <(  Tout  va  bien  tant  qu'on  dira 
Robespierre  et  Danton;  mais  malheur  a  moi  si  on  dit  jamais  Danton 
et  Robespierre .*  All  will  go  well  as  long  as  men  say  Robes¬ 
pierre  and  Danton;  but  woe  be  to  me  if  ever  they  should  say 
Danton  and  Robespierre.  Possibly  he  became  sensible  to  the 
power  of  Robespierre’s  character,  forever  persisting  in  extreme 
courses,  and  plunging  onwards  beyond  any  one,  with  a  perfect 
absence  of  all  scruples  in  his  remorseless  career.  But  his  dread 
of  such  a  conflict  as  those  words  contemplate  was  assuredly  much 
augmented  by  the  feeling  that  the  match  must  prove  most  un¬ 
equal  between  his  own  honesty  and  openness,  and  the  practiced 
duplicity  of  the  most  dark,  the  most  crafty  of  human  beings. 

The  impression,  thus  become  habitual  on  his  mind,  and  which 
made  him  so  distrustful  of  himself  in  a  combat  with  an  adver¬ 
sary  like  the  rattlesnake,  at  once  terrible  and  despicable,  whose 
rattle  gives  warning  of  the  neighboring  peril,  may  go  far  to  ac¬ 
count  for  his  avoiding  the  strife  till  all  precaution  was  too  late 
to  save  him.  But  we  must  also  take  into  account  the  other  habit¬ 
ual  feeling,  so  often  destructive  of  revolutionary  nerves;  the  awe 
in  which  the  children  of  convulsion,  like  the  practicers  of  the 
dark  art,  stand  of  the  spirit  they  have  themselves  conjured  up; 
their  instinctive  feeling  of  the  agnostic  throes  which  they  have 
excited  in  the  mass  of  the  community,  and  armed  with  such  re¬ 
sistless  energy.  The  Committee,  though  both  opposed  and  divided 
against  itself,  still  presented  to  the  country  the  front  of  the  ex¬ 
isting  supreme  power  in  the  State;  it  was  the  sovereign  de  facto y 


56° 


LORD  BROUGHAM 


and  retained  as  such  all  those  preternatural  attributes  that  do 
hedge  in  »  monarchs  even  when  tottering  to  their  fall;  it  there¬ 
fore  impressed  the  children  of  popular  change  with  the  awe 
which  they  instinctively  feel  towards  the  Sovereign  People.  Hence 
Danton,  viewing  in  Robespierre  the  personification  of  the  multi¬ 
tude,  could  not  at  once  make  up  his  mind  to  fly  in  the  face  of 
this  dread  power;  and  his  hesitation  enabled  his  adversaries  to 
begin  the  mortal  fray,  and  win  their  last  victory.  Plainly,  it  was 
a  strife  in  which  the  party  that  began  was  sure  to  carry  the  day. 

The  history  of  Danton,  as  well  as  that  of  Robespierre,  both 
those  passages  wherein  they  were  jointly  successful,  and  those  in 
which  one  fell  beneath  the  power  and  the  arts  —  the  combined 
force  and  fraud  —  of  the  other,  is  well  calculated  to  impress  upon 
our  minds  that,  in  the  great  affairs  of  the  world,  especially  in  the 
revolutions  which  change  its  condition,  the  one  thing  needful  is 
a  sustained  determination  of  character;  a  mind  firm,  persevering, 
inflexible,  incapable  of  bending  to  the  will  of  another,  and  ever 
controlling  circumstances,  not  yielding  to  them.  A  quick  percep¬ 
tion  of  opportunities,  a  prompt  use  of  them,  is  of  infinite  advan¬ 
tage;  an  indomitable  boldness  in  danger  is  all  but  necessary; 
nevertheless  Robespierre’s  career  shows  that  it  is  not  quite  indis¬ 
pensable,  while  Danton ’s  is  a  proof  that  a  revolutionary  chief 
may  possess  it  habitually,  and  may  yet  be  destroyed  by  a  mo¬ 
mentary  loss  of  nerve,  or  a  disposition  to  take  the  law  from 
others,  or  an  inopportune  hesitation  and  faltering  in  recurring  to 
extreme  measures.  But  the  history  of  all  these  celebrated  men 
shows  that  steady,  unflinching,  unscrupulous  perseverance  —  the 
fixed  and  vehement  will  —  is  altogether  essential  to  success. 
<(  Quod  vult,  id  valde  vult*  said  one  great  man  formerly  of  an¬ 
other,  to  whom  it  applied  less  strikingly  than  to  himself,  though 
he  was  fated  to  experience  in  his  own  person  that  it  was  far 
from  being  inapplicable  to  him  of  whom  he  said  it.  It  was  the 
saying  of  Julius  Caesar  respecting  Junius  Brutus,  and  conveyed 
in  a  letter  to  one  who,  celebrated,  and  learned,  and  virtuous  as 
he  was,  and  capable  of  exerting  both  boldness  and  firmness  upon 
occasion,  was  yet,  of  all  the  great  men  that  have  made  their 
names  illustrious,  the  one  who  could  the  least  claim  the  same 
habitual  character  for  himself.  Marcus  Tullius  could  never  have 
risen  to  eminence  in  the  Revolution  of  France,  any  more  than 
he  could  have  mingled  in  the  scenes  which  disgracefully  distin¬ 
guished  it  from  the  troubles  of  Rome. 


JOHN  BROWN 

(1810-1882) 

r.  John  Brown  loved  men  and  dogs  so  well  that  the  entire 
English-speaking  world  loves  him  for  it.  His  was  a  tender 
and  manly  soul,  full  of  faith  in  God  and  man,  with  such 
courage  to  express  itself  as  no  weak  soul  can  have,  and  such  genuine¬ 
ness  in  its  expression  as  no  untrue  soul  can  assume.  His  description 
of  his  walk  with  Thackeray  on  the  Dean  road  near  Edinburgh  is  full 
of  his  peculiar  power.  <(It  was  a  lovely  evening, »  he  writes, — (<  such 
a  sunset  as  one  never  forgets;  a  rich  dark  bar  of  cloud  hovered  over 
the  sun,  going  down  behind  the  Highland  hills,  lying  bathed  in  ame¬ 
thystine  bloom.  Between  this  cloud  and  the  hills,  there  was  a  nar¬ 
row  slip  of  the  pure  ether,  of  a  tender  cowship  color,  lucid  as  if  it 
were  the  very  body  of  heaven  in  its  clearness, —  every  object  stand¬ 
ing  out  as  if  etched  upon  the  sky.  The  northwest  end  of  Corstor- 
phine  Hill,  with  its  trees  and  rocks,  lay  in  the  heart  of  this  pure 
radiance;  and  there  a  wooden  crane,  used  in  the  quarry  below,  was 
so  placed  as  to  assume  the  figure  of  a  cross.  There  it  was  —  unmis¬ 
takable,  lifted  up  against  the  crystalline  sky.  All  three  gazed  at  it 
silently.  As  they  gazed,  he  gave  utterance  in  a  tremulous,  gentle, 
and  rapid  voice  to  what  all  were  feeling,  in  the  word:  «  Calvary !» 
The  friends  walked  on  in  silence  and  then  turned  to  other  things. 
All  that  evening,  he  was  very  gentle  and  serious,  speaking  as  he 
seldom  did  of  divine  things  —  of  death,  of  sin,  of  eternity,  of  salva¬ 
tion;  expressing  his  simple  faith  in  God  and  in  his  Savior. » 

We  might  read  many  biographies  of  Thackeray  without  learning 
as  much  of  the  realities  of  his  nature  as  are  here  expressed  with  the 
most  delicate  art, — an  art  which  shows  us  Thackeray’s  inmost  nature 
by  describing  the  colors  of  a  sunset  sky  and  the  illusion  made  pos¬ 
sible  by  the  commonplace  machinery  of  a  stone  quarry.  This  is  un¬ 
questionably  literary  art  of  a  high  order,  and  it  was  made  possible 
for  Doctor  Brown  by  that  strong  and  tender  sympathy  with  what  is 
best  in  nature  and  human  nature  which  appears  everywhere  as  the 
master  motive  of  his  essays. 

He  was  born  at  Biggar,  Scotland,  in  September,  1810.  During 
most  of  his  life  he  was  a  practicing  physician  in  Edinburgh,  and 
made  on  its  streets  those  keen  observations  of  dog  nature  which  in 
<(  Rab  and  His  Friends >}  go  far  to  persuade  the  reader  to  believe, 
11—36 


562 


JOHN  BROWN 


with  Agassiz,  that  nobility  in  dog  nature  is  as  immortal  as  it  is  in 
the  human  soul.  Doctor  Brown’s  essays  appear  in  <(  Horae  Subse- 
civae”  (two  volumes)  and  in  <(John  Leech  and  Other  Papers. »  He 
loved  what  was  simple,  true,  and  unpretentious,  and  his  work  is 
never  likely  to  go  out  of  favor. 


THE  DEATH  OF  THACKERAY 

We  have  seen  no  satisfactory  portrait  of  Mr.  Thackeray,  We 
like  the  photographs  better  than  the  prints;  and  we  have 
an  old  daguerreotype  of  him  without  his  spectacles  which 
is  good;  but  no  photograph  can  give  more  of  a  man  than  there 
is  in  any  one  ordinary  —  often  very  ordinary  —  look  of  him;  it  is 
only  Sir  Joshua  and  his  brethren  who  can  paint  a  man  liker  than 
himself.  Lawrence’s  first  drawing  has  much  of  his  thoroughbred 
look,  but  the  head  is  too  much  tossed  up  and  vif.  The  photo¬ 
graph  from  the  later  drawing  by  the  same  hand  we  like  better; 
he  is  alone,  and  reading  with  his  book  close  up  to  his  eyes. 
This  gives  the  prodigious  size  and  solidity  of  his  head,  and  the 
sweet  mouth.  We  have  not  seen  that  by  Mr.  Watts,  but  if  it  is 
as  full  of  power  and  delicacy  as  his  Tennyson,  it  will  be  a  com¬ 
fort. 

Though  in  no  sense  a  selfish  man,  he  had  a  wonderful  inter¬ 
est  in  himself  as  an  object  of  study,  and  nothing  could  be  more 
delightful  and  unlike  anything  else  than  to  listen  to  him  on  him¬ 
self.  He  often  draws  his  own  likeness  in  his  books.  In  the 
<(  Fraserians, by  Maclise,  in  Fraser,  is  a  slight  sketch  of  him  in 
his  unknown  youth;  and  there  is  an  excessively  funny  and  not 
unlike  extravaganza  of  him  by  Doyle  or  Leech,  in  the  Month,  a 
little  short-lived  periodical,  edited  by  Albert  Smith.  He  is  rep¬ 
resented  lecturing,  when  certainly  he  looked  his  best. 

The  -foregoing  estimate  of  his  genius  must  stand  instead  of 
any  special  portraiture  of  the  man.  Yet  we  would  mention  two 
leading  traits  of  character  traceable,  to  a  large  extent,  in  his 
works,  though  finding  no  appropriate  place  in  a  literary  criticism 
of  them.  One  was  the  deep  steady  melancholy  of  his  nature. 
He  was  fond  of  telling  how  on  one  occasion  at  Paris  he  found 
himself  in  a  great  crowded  salon;  and  looking  from  the  one  end 
across  the  sea  of  heads,  being  in  Swift’s  place  of  calm  in  a 
crowd,  he  saw  at  the  other  end  a  strange  visage  staring  at  him 


JOHN  BROWN 


563 


with  an  expression  of  comical  woebegoneness.  After  a  little  he 
found  that  this  rueful  being  was  himself  in  the  mirror.  He  was 
not,  indeed,  morose.  He  was  alive  to  and  thankful  for  every-day- 
blessings,  great  and  small;  for  the  happiness  of  home,  for  friend¬ 
ship,  for  wit  and  music,  for  beauty  of  all  kinds,  for  the  pleasures 
of  the  (<  faithful  old  gold  pen  ® ;  now  running  into  some  felicitous 
expression,  now  playing  itself  into  some  droll  initial  letter;  nay, 
even  for  the  creature  comforts.  But  his  persistent  state,  espe¬ 
cially  for  the  latter  half  of  his  life,  was  profoundly  morne , —  there 
is  no  other  word  for  it.  This  arose  in  part  from  temperament, 
from  a  quick  sense  of  the  littleness  and  wretchedness  of  man¬ 
kind.  His  keen  perception  of  the  meanness  and  vulgarity  of 
the  realities  around  him  contrasted  with  the  ideal  present  to  his 
mind  could  produce  no  other  effect.  This  feeling,  embittered  by 
disappointment,  acting  on  a  harsh  and  savage  nature,  ended  in 
the  sceva  indignatio  of  Swift;  acting  on  the  kindly  and  too  sen¬ 
sitive  nature  of  Mr.  Thackeray,  it  led  only  to  compassionate  sad¬ 
ness.  In  part,  too,  this  melancholy  was  the  result  of  private 
calamities.  He  alludes  to  these  often  in  his  writings,  and  a 
knowledge  that  his  sorrows  were  great  is  necessary  to  the  per¬ 
fect  appreciation  of  much  of  his  deepest  pathos.  We  allude  to 
them  here,  painful  as  the  subject  is,  mainly  because  they  have 
given  rise  to  stories, —  some  quite  untrue,  some  even  cruelly  in¬ 
jurious.  The  loss  of  his  second  child  in  infancy  was  always  an 
abiding  sorrow, —  described  in  the  (<  Hoggarty  Diamond, ®  in  a 
passage  of  surpassing  tenderness,  too  sacred  to  be  severed  from 
its  context.  A  yet  keener  and  more  constantly  present  affliction 
was  the  illness  of  his  wife.  He  married  her  in  Paris  when  he 
was  (<  mewing  his  mighty  youth, }>  preparing  for  the  great  career 
which  awaited  him.  One  likes  to  think  on  these  early  days  of 
happiness,  when  he  could  draw  and  write  with  that  loved  com¬ 
panion  by  his  side;  he  has  himself  sketched  the  picture:  (<The 
humblest  painter,  be  he  ever  so  poor,  may  have  a  friend  watch¬ 
ing  at  his  easel,  or  a  gentle  wife  sitting  by  with  her  work  in  her 
lap,  and  with  fond  smiles  or  talk  or  silence  cheering  his  labors. 
After  some  years  of  marriage,  Mrs.  Thackeray  caught  a  fever, 
brought  on  by  imprudent  exposure  at  a  time  when  the  effects  of 
such  ailments  are  more  than  usually  lasting  both  on  the  system 
and  the  nerves.  She  never  afterwards  recovered  so  as  to  be 
able  to  be  with  her  husband  and  children.  But  she  has  been 
from  the  first  intrusted  to  the  good  offices  of  a  kind  family,  ten- 


564 


JOHN  BROWN 


derly  cared  for,  surrounded  with  every  comfort  by  his  unwearied 
affection.  The  beautiful  lines  in  the  ballad  of  the  (<  Bouillabaisse ® 
are  well  known:  — 

<(Ah  me!  how  quick  the  days  are  flitting! 

I  mind  me  of  a  time  that’s  gone, 

When  here  I’d  sit  as  now  I’m  sitting, 

In  this  same  place, — but  not  alone. 

A  fair  young  form  was  nestled  near  me, 

A  dear,  dear  face  looked  fondly  up, 

And  sweetly  spoke  and  smiled  to  cheer  me, 

—  There’s  no  one  now  to  share  my  cup.” 

In  one  of  the  latest  Roundabouts  we  have  this  touching  con¬ 
fession  ;  (<  I  own  for  my  part  that,  in  reading  pages  which  this 
hand  penned  formerly,  I  often  lose  sight  of  the  text  under  my 
eyes.  It  is  not  the  words  I  see,  but  that  past  day;  that  bygone 
page  of  life’s  history;  that  tragedy,  comedy  it  may  be,  which  our 
little  home-company  was  enacting;  that  merry-making  which  we 
shared;  that  funeral  which  we  followed;  that  bitter,  bitter  grief 
which  we  buried.”  But  all  who  knew  him  well,  love  to  re¬ 
call  how  these  sorrows  were  soothed  and  his  home  made  a  place 
of  happiness  by  his  two  daughters  and  his  mother,  who  were  his 
perpetual  companions,  delights,  and  blessings,  and  whose  feeling 
of  inestimable  loss  now  will  be  best  borne  and  comforted  by  re¬ 
membering  how  they  were  everything  to  him,  as  he  was  to  them. 

His  sense  of  a  higher  Power,  his  reverence  and  godly  fear,  is 
felt  more  than  expressed  —  as  indeed  it  mainly  should  always  be 
—  in  everything  he  wrote.  It  comes  out  at  times  quite  suddenly, 
and  stops  at  once,  in  its  full  strength.  We  could  readily  give 
many  instances  of  this.  One  we  give,  as  it  occurs  very  early, 
when  he  was  probably  little  more  than  six-and-twenty ;  it  is  from 
the  paper,  (<  Madam  Sand  and  the  New  Apocalypse,”  Referring 
to  Heinrich  Heine’s  frightful  words,  aDieu  qui  se  meurt ,”  aDieu 
est  mort ,”  and  to  the  godlessness  of  Spiridion ,  he  thus  bursts  out: 
<(  O  awful,  awful  name  of  God !  Light  unbearable !  mystery  un¬ 
fathomable  !  vastness  immeasurable !  Who  are  these  who  come 
forward  to  explain  the  mystery,  and  gaze  unblinking  into  the 
depths  of  the  light,  and  measure  the  immeasurable  vastness  to  a 
hair?  O  name  that  God’s  people  of  old  did  fear  to  utter!  O 
light  that  God’s  prophet  would  have  perished  had  he  seen !  who 
are  these  now  so  familiar  with  it  ?  ”  In  ordinary  intercourse 


JOHN  BROWN 


565 


the  same  sudden  <(  Te  Deum  *  would  occur,  always  brief  and  in¬ 
tense,  like  lightning  from  a  cloudless  heaven;  he  seemed  almost 
ashamed, — not  of  it,  but  of  his  giving  it  expression. 

We  cannot  resist  here  recalling  one  Sunday  evening  in  Decem¬ 
ber,  when  he  was  walking  with  two  friends  along  the  Dean  road, 
to  the  west  of  Edinburgh,  — one  of  the  noblest  outlets  to  any 
city.  It  was  a  lovely  evening,  —  such  a  sunset  as  one  never  for¬ 
gets;  a  rich  dark  bar  of  cloud  hovered  over  the  sun,  going  down 
behind  the  Highland  hills,  lying  bathed  in  amethystine  bloom; 
between  this  cloud  and  the  hills,  there  was  a  narrow  slip  of  the 
pure  ether,  of  a  tender  cowslip  color,  lucid  as  if  it  were  the  very 
body  of  heaven  in  its  clearness;  every  object  standing  out  as  if 
etched  upon  the  sky.  The  northwest  end  of  Corstorphine  Hill, 
with  its  trees  and  rocks,  lay  in  the  heart  of  this  pure  radiance, 
and  there  a  wooden  crane,  used  in  the  quarry  below,  was  so 

placed  as  to  assume  the  figure  of  a  cross;  there  it  was,  unmis¬ 

takable,  lifted  up  against  the  crystalline  sky.  All  three  gazed  at 
it  silently.  As  they  gazed,  he  gave  utterance  in  a  tremulous, 
gentle,  and  rapid  voice,  to  what  all  were  feeling,  in  the  word 
<(  Calvary! }>  The  friends  walked  on  in  silence  and  then  turned 
to  other  things.  All  that  evening  he  was  very  gentle  and  seri¬ 
ous,  speaking  as  he  seldom  did  of  divine  things, —  of  death,  of 
sin,  of  eternity,  of  salvation;  expressing  his  simple  faith  in  God 
and  in  his  Savior. 

There  is  a  passage  at  the  close  of  the  Roundabout  paper, 

No.  XXIII.,  De  Finibus ,  in  which  a  sense  of  the  ebb  of  life  is 

very  marked:  the  whole  paper  is  like  a  soliloquy.  It  opens  with 
a  drawing  of  Mr.  Punch,  with  unusually  mild  eyes,  retiring  for 
the  night;  he  is  putting  out  his  high-heeled  shoes,  and  before 
disappearing  gives  a  wistful  look  into  the  passage,  as  if  bidding 
it  and  all  else  good-night.  He  will  be  in  bed,  his  candle  out, 
and  in  darkness,  in  five  minutes,  and  his  shoes  found  next  morn¬ 
ing  at  his  door,  the  little  potentate  all  the  while  in  his  final 
sleep.  The  whole  paper  is  worth  the  most  careful  study;  it  re¬ 
veals  not  a  little  of  his  real  nature,  and  unfolds  very  curiously 
the  secret  of  his  work,  the  vitality  and  abiding  power  of  his  own 
creations;  how  he  <(  invented  a  certain  Costigan,  out  of  scraps, 
heel  taps,  odds  and  ends  of  characters, w  and  met  the  original  the 
other  day,  without  surprise,  in  a  tavern  parlor.  The  following  is 
beautiful:  <( Years  ago  I  had  a  quarrel  with  a  certain  well-known 
person  (I  believed  a  statement  regarding  him  which  his  friends 


566 


JOHN  BROWN 


imparted  to  me,  and  which  turned  out  to  be  quite  incorrect). 
To  his  dying  day  that  quarrel  was  never  quite  made  up.  I  said 
to  his  brother:  ( Why  is  your  brother’s  soul  still  dark  against 
me  ?  It  is  I  who  ought  to  be  angry  and  unforgiving,  for  I  was 
in  the  wrong. > Odisse  quem  Iceseris  was  never  better  contra¬ 
vened.  But  what  we  chiefly  refer  to  now  is  the  profound  pen¬ 
siveness  of  the  following  strain,  as  if  written  with  a  presentiment 
of  what  was  not  then  very  far  off :  <(  Another  Finis  written ;  another 
milestone  on  this  journey  from  birth  to  the  next  world.  Sure  it 
is  a  subject  for  solemn  cogitation.  Shall  we  continue  this  story¬ 
telling  business,  and  be  voluble  to  the  end  of  our  age?  Will  it 
not  be  presently  time,  O  prattler,  to  hold  your  tongue  ?  *  And 
thus  he  ends :  — 

(<  Oh,  the  sad  old  pages,  the  dull  old  pages ;  oh,  the  cares,  the 
ennui,  the  squabbles,  the  repetitions,  the  old  conversations  over  and 
over  again!  But  now  and  again  a  kind  thought  is  recalled,  and  now 
and  again  a  dear  memory.  Yet  a  few  chapters  more,  and  then  the 
last;  after  which,  behold  Finis  itself  comes  to  an  end,  and  the  Infinite 
begins. }) 

He  sent  the  proof  of  this  paper  to  his  <(dear  neighbors, *  in 
Onslow  Square,  to  whom  he  owed  so  much  almost  daily  pleasure, 
with  his  corrections,  the  whole  of  the  last  paragraph  in  manu¬ 
script,  and  above  a  first  sketch  of  it  also  in  manuscript,  which  is 
fuller  and  more  impassioned.  His  fear  of  <(  enthusiastic  writing  ” 
had  led  him,  we  think,  to  sacrifice  something  of  the  sacred  power 
of  his  first  words,  which  we  give  with  its  interlineations:  — 

(<  Another  Finis,  another  slice  of  life  which  Temfius  edax  has  de¬ 
voured!  And  I  may  have  to  write  the  word  once  or  twice  perhaps, 
and  then  an  end  of  Ends.  Oh,  the  troubles,  the  cares,  the  ennui,  the 
disputes,  the  repetitions,  the  old  conversations  over  and  over  again, 
and  here  and  there,  and  oh !  the  delightful  passages,  the  dear,  the 
brief,  the  forever  remembered!  A  few  chapters  more,  and  then  the 
last,  and  then  behold  Finis  itself  coming  to  an  end  and  the  Infinite 
beginning !  ® 

How  like  music  this, —  like  one  trying  the  same  air  in  differ¬ 
ent  ways;  as  it  were,  searching  out  and  sounding  all  its  depths. 
<(  The  dear,  the  brief,  the  forever  remembered )} ;  these  are  like  a 
bar  out  of  Beethoven,  deep  and  melancholy  as  the  sea!  He  had 
been  suffering  on  Sunday  from  an  old  and  cruel  enemy.  He 
fixed  with  his  friend  and  surgeon  to  come  again  on  Tuesday;  but 


JOHN  BROWN 


567 


with  that  dread  of  anticipated  pain,  which  is  a  common  condition 
of  sensibility  and  genius,  he  put  him  off  with  a  note  from  <(  yours 
unfaithfully,  W.  M.  T. )}  He  went  out  on  Wednesday  for  a  little, 
and  came  home  at  ten.  He  went  to  his  room,  suffering  much, 
but  declining  his  man’s  offer  to  sit  with  him.  He  hated  to  make 
others  suffer.  He  was  heard  moving,  as  if  in  pain,  about  twelve, 
on  the  eve  of 


(<  That  the  happy  morn, 

Wherein  the  Son  of  Heaven’s  eternal  King, 

Of  wedded  maid  and  virgin  mother  born. 

Our  great  redemption  from  above  did  bring. ® 

Then  all  was  quiet,  and  then  he  must  have  died — in  a  mo¬ 
ment.  Next  morning  his  man  went  in,  and  opening  the  windows 
found  his  master  dead,  his  arms  behind  his  head,  as  if  he  had 
tried  to  take  one  more  breath.  We  think  of  him  as  of  our  Chal¬ 
mers, —  found  dead  in  like  manner;  the  same  childlike,  unspoiled 
open  face;  the  same  gentle  mouth;  the  same  spaciousness  and 
softness  of  nature;  the  same  look  of  power.  What  a  thing  to 
think  of, — his  lying  there  alone  in  the  dark,  in  the  midst  of  his 
own  mighty  London;  his  mother  and  his  daughters  asleep,  and, 
it  may  be,  dreaming  of  his  goodness.  God  help  them,  and  us  all ! 
What  would  become  of  us,  stumbling  along  this  our  path  of  life, 
if  we  could  not,  at  our  utmost  need,  stay  ourselves  on  him  ? 

Long  years  of  sorrow,  labor,  and  pain  had  killed  him  before 
his  time.  It  was  found  after  death  how  little  life  he  had  to  live. 
He  looked  always  fresh  with  that  abounding,  silvery  hair,  and  his 
young,  almost  infantine  face,  but  he  was  worn  to  a  shadow,  and 
his  hands  wasted  as  if  by  eighty  years.  With  him  it  is  the  end 
of  Ends;  finite  is  over,  and  infinite  begun.  What  we  all  felt 
and  feel  can  never  be  so  well  expressed  as  in  his  own  words  of 
sorrow  for  the  early  death  of  Charles  Buller :  — 

(<  Who  knows  the  inscrutable  design  ? 

Blest  be  he  who  took  and  gave! 

Why  should  your  mother,  Charles,  not  mine, 

Be  weeping  at  her  darling’s  grave? 

We  bow  to  Heaven  that  willed  it  so, 

That  darkly  rules  the  fate  of  all. 

That  sends  the  respite  or  the  blow, 

That’s  free  to  give,  or  to  recall.® 


Complete. 


568 


JOHN  BROWN 


MARY  DUFF’S  LAST  HALF-CROWN 

Hugh  Miller,  the  geologist,  journalist,  and  man  of  genius,  was 
sitting  in  his  newspaper  office  late  one  dreary  winter  night. 
The  clerks  had  all  left  and  he  was  preparing  to  go,  when 
a  quick  rap  came  to  the  door.  He  said  (( Come  in,”  and  in 
looking  towards  the  entrance,  saw  a  little  ragged  child  all  wet 
with  sleet.  (<Are  ye  Hugh  Miller?”  <(Yes.  ”  <(  Mary  Duff  wants 
ye.”  <(  What  does  she  want?”  <(  She’s  deeing.”  Some  misty 
recollection  of  the  name  made  him  at  once  set  out,  and  with  his 
well-known  plaid  and  stick  he  was  soon  striding  after  the  child, 
who  trotted  through  the  now  deserted  High  Street  into  the 
Canongate.  By  the  time  he  got  to  the  Old  Playhouse  Close, 
Hugh  had  revived  his  memory  of  Mary  Duff;  a  lively  girl  who 
had  been  bred  up  beside  him  in  Cromarty.  The  last  time  he 
had  seen  her  was  at  a  brother  mason’s  marriage,  where  Mary 
was  (<best  maid”  and  he  <(  best  man.”  He  seemed  still  to  see 
her  bright,  young,  careless  face,  her  tidy  shortgown,  and  her  dark 
eyes,  and  to  hear  her  bantering,  merry  tongue. 

Down  the  close  went  the  ragged  little  woman,  and  up  an  out¬ 
side  stair,  Hugh  keeping  near  her  with  difficulty.  In  the  passage 
she  held  out  her  hand  and  touched  him;  taking  it  in  his  great 
palm,  he  felt  that  she  wanted  a  thumb.  Finding  her  way  like  a 
cat  through  the  darkness,  she  opened  a  door,  and  saying,  (<  That’s 
her!”  vanished.  By  the  light  of  a  dying  fire  he  saw  lying  in 
the  corner  of  the  large,  empty  room  something  like  a  woman’s 
clothes,  and  on  drawing  nearer  became  aware  of  a  thin,  pale 
face  and  two  dark  eyes  looking  keenly  but  helplessly  up  at  him. 
The  eyes  were  plainly  Mary  Duff’s,  though  he  could  recognize 
no  other  feature.  She  wept  silently,  gazing  steadily  at  him. 
<(Are  you  Mary  Duff?”  <(  It’s  a’  that’s  o’  me,  Hugh.”  She  then 
tried  to  speak  to  him,  something  plainly  of  great  urgency,  but 
she  couldn’t;  and  seeing  that  she  was  very  ill,  and  was  making 
herself  worse,  he  put  half  a  crown  into  her  feverish  hand  and 
said  he  would  call  again  in  the  morning.  He  could  get  no  in¬ 
formation  about  her  from  the  neighbors;  they  were  surly  or 
asleep. 

When  he  returned  next  morning,  the  little  girl  met  him  at 
the  stairhead,  and  said,  (<  She’s  deid.  ”  He  went  in  and  found 
that  it  was  true;  there  she  lay,  the  fire  out,  her  face  placid,  and 


JOHN  BROWN 


569 


the  likeness  of  her  maiden  self  restored.  Hugh  thought  he 
would  have  known  her  now,  even  with  those  bright  black  eyes 
closed  as  they  were,  in  ceternum. 

Seeking  out  a  neighbor,  he  said  he  would  like  to  bury  Mary 
Duff,  and  arranged  for  a  funeral  with  an  undertaker  in  the  close. 
Little  seemed  to  be  known  of  the  poor  outcast,  except  that  she 
was  a  (<  licht, ®  or  as  Solomon  would  have  said,  a  (<  strange 
woman. ®  (<  Did  she  drink  ?  ®  “Whiles.® 

On  the  day  of  the  funeral  one  or  two  residents  in  the  close 
accompanied  him  to  the  Canongate  churchyard.  He  observed  a 
decent-looking  little  old  woman  watching  them,  and  following  at 
a  distance,  though  the  day  was  wet  and  bitter.  After  the  grave 
was  filled,  and  he  had  taken  off  his  hat,  as  the  men  finished 
their  business  by  putting  on  and  slapping  the  sod,  he  saw  this 
old  woman  remaining;  she  came  up  and  curtsying,  said,  “  Ye 
wad  ken  that  lass,  sir  ?  ®  “Yes;  I  knew  her  when  she  was 
young.®  The  woman  then  burst  into  tears,  and  told  Hugh  that 
she  “ keepit  a  bit  shop  at  the  close-mooth,  and  Mary  dealt  wi’ 
me,  and  aye  paid  reglar,  and  I  was  feared  she  was  dead,  for  she 
had  been  a  month  awin’  me  half  a  crown  ® ;  and  then  with  a  look 
and  voice  of  awe,  she  told  him  how  on  the  night  he  was  sent 
for,  and  immediately  after  he  had  left,  she  had  been  awakened 
by  some  one  in  her  room;  and  by  her  bright  fire  —  for  she  was 
a  bein  well-to-do  body  —  she  had  seen  the  wasted  dying  creature, 
who  came  forward  and  said,  <(  Wasn’t  it  half  a  crown?®  “Yes.® 
<(  There  it  is,  ®  and  putting  it  under  the  bolster,  vanished ! 

Poor  Mary  Duff,  her  life  had  been  a  sad  one  since  the  day 
when  she  had  stood  side  by  side  with  Hugh  at  the  wedding  of 
their  friends.  Her  father  died  not  long  after,  and  her  mother 
supplanted  her  in  the  affections  of  the  man  to  whom  she  had 
given  her  heart.  The  shock  made  home  intolerable.  She  fled 
from  it  blighted  and  embittered,  and,  after  a  life  of  shame  and 
misery,  crept  into  the  corner  of  her  room  to  die  alone. 

“  My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are  your  ways 
my  ways,  saith  the  Lord.  For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than 
the  earth,  so  are  my  ways  higher  than  your  ways,  and  my 
thoughts  than  your  thoughts.® 


From  (<  Horse  Subsecivse.® 


57o 


JOHN  BROWN 


RAB  AND  THE  GAME  CHICKEN 

Four-and-thirty  years  ago,  Bob  Ainslie  and  I  were  coming 
up  Infirmary  Street  from  the  Edinburgh  High  School,  our 
heads  together,  and  our  arms  intertwisted,  as  only  lovers 
and  boys  know  how,  or  why. 

When  we  got  to  the  top  of  the  street,  and  turned  north,  we 
espied  a  crowd  at  the  Tron  Church.  (<  A  dog  fight! )J  shouted 
Bob,  and  was  off;  and  so  was  I,  both  of  us  all  but  praying  that 
it  might  not  be  over  before  we  got  up !  And  is  not  this  boy- 
nature  ?  and  human  nature  too  ?  and  don’t  we  all  wish  a  house 
on  fire  not  to  be  out  before  we  see  it?  Dogs  like  fighting;  old 
Isaac  says  they  <(  delight in  it,  and  for  the  best  of  all  reasons ; 
and  boys  are  not  cruel  because  they  like  to  see  the  fight.  They 
see  three  of  the  great  cardinal  virtues  of  dog  or  man  —  courage, 
endurance,  and  skill  —  in  intense  action.  This  is  very  different 
from  a  love  of  making  dogs  fight,  and  enjoying,  and  aggravat¬ 
ing,  and  making  gain  by  their  pluck.  A  boy,  be  he  ever  so  fond 
himself  of  fighting,  if  he  be  a  good  boy,  hates  and  despises  all 
this,  but  he  would  have  run  off  with  Bob  and  me  fast  enough; 
it  is  a  natural,  and  a  not  wicked  interest,  that  all  boys  and  men 
have  in  witnessing  intense  energy  in  action. 

Does  any  curious  and  finely  ignorant  woman  wish  to  know 
how  Bob’s  eye  at  a  glance  announced  a  dog  fight  to  his  brain  ? 
He  did  not,  he  could  not,  see  the  dogs  fighting;  it  was  a  flash  of 
an  inference,  a  rapid  induction.  The  crowd  round  a  couple  of 
dogs  fighting  is  a  crowd  masculine  mainly,  with  an  occasional 
active,  compassionate  woman,  fluttering  wildly  round  the  outside, 
and  using  her  tongue  and  her  hands  freely  upon  the  men,  as  so 
many  <(  brutes  ® ;  it  is  a  crowd  annular,  compact,  and  mobile ;  a 
crowd  centripetal,  having  its  eyes  and  its  heads  all  bent  down¬ 
wards  and  inwards  to  one  common  focus. 

Well,  Bob  and  I  are  up,  and  find  it  is  not  over;  a  small, 
thoroughbred,  white  bull-terrier  is  busy  throttling  a  large  shep¬ 
herd’s  dog,  unaccustomed  to  war,  but  not  to  be  trifled  with. 
They  are  hard  at  it;  the  scientific  little  fellow  doing  his  work  in 
great  style,  his  pastoral  enemy  fighting  wildly,  but  with  the 
sharpest  of  teeth  and  a  great  courage.  Science  and  breeding, 
however,  soon  had  their  own;  the  Game  Chicken,  as  the  prema¬ 
ture  Bob  called  him,  working  his  way  up,  took  his  final  grip  of 


JOHN  BROWN 


571 


poor  Yarrow’s  throat, — and  he  lay  gasping  and  done  for.  His 
master,  a  brown,  handsome,  big  young  shepherd  from  Tweeds- 
muir,  would  have  liked  to  have  knocked  down  any  man,  would 
(<  drink  up  Esil,  or  eat  a  crocodile, ”  for  that  part,  if  he  had  a 
chance:  it  was  no  use  kicking  the  little  dog;  that  would  only 
make  him  hold  the  closer.  Many  were  the  means  shouted  out  in 
mouthfuls,  of  the  best  possible  ways  of  ending  it.  <(  Water !  ”  but 
there  was  none  near,  and  many  cried  for  it  who  might  have  got 
it  from  the  well  at  Blackfriars  Wynd.  <(  Bite  the  tail!”  and  a 
large,  vague,  benevolent,  middle-aged  man,  more  desirous  than 
wise,  with  some  struggle  got  the  bushy  end  of  Yarrow’s  tail  into 
his  ample  mouth,  and  bit  it  with  all  his  might.  This  was  more 
than  enough  for  the  much-enduring,  much-perspiring  shepherd, 
who,  with  a  gleam  of  joy  over  his  broad  visage,  delivered  a  ter¬ 
rific  facer  upon  our  large,  vague,  benevolent,  middle-aged  friend, — 
who  went  down  like  a  shot. 

Still  the  Chicken  holds;  death  not  far  off.  <(  Snuff!  a  pinch 
of  snuff !  ”  observed  a  calm,  highly-dressed  young  buck,  with  an 
eyeglass  in  his  eye.  <(  Snuff,  indeed !  ”  growled  the  angry  crowd, 
affronted  and  glaring.  <(  Snuff !  a  pinch  of  snuff !  *  again  observes 
the  buck,  but  with  more  urgency;  whereon  were  produced  sev¬ 
eral  open  boxes,  and  from  a  mull  which  may  have  been  at  Cul- 
loden,  he  took  a  pinch,  knelt  down,  and  presented  it  to  the 
nose  of  the  Chicken.  The  laws  of  physiology  and  of  snuff  take 
their  course;  the  Chicken  sneezes,  and  Yarrow  is  free! 

The  young  pastoral  giant  stalks  off  with  Yarrow  in  his  arms, 
—  comforting  him. 

But  the  bull  terrier’s  blood  is  up,  and  his  soul  unsatisfied; 
he  grips  the  first  dog  he  meets,  and  discovering  she  is  not  a 
dog,  in  Homeric  phrase,  he  makes  a  brief  sort  of  amende ,  and  is 
off.  The  boys,  with  Bob  and  me  at  their  head,  are  after  him: 
down  Niddry  Street  he  goes  bent  on  mischief;  up  the  Cowgate 
like  an  arrow, —  Bob  and  I,  and  our- small  men,  panting  behind. 

There,  under  the  single  arch  of  the  South  Bridge,  is  a  huge 
mastiff,  sauntering  down  the  middle  of  the  causeway,  as  if  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets;  he  is  old,  gray,  brindled,  as  big  as  a 
little  Highland  bull,  and  has  the  Shakespearean  dewlaps  shaking 
as  he  goes. 

The  Chicken  makes  straight  at  him  and  fastens  on  his  throat. 
To  our  astonishment,  the  great  creature  does  nothing  but  stand 
still,  hold  himself  up  and  roar, — yes,  roar;  a  long,  serious, 


572 


JOHN  BROWN 


remonstrative  roar.  How  is  this  ?  Bob  and  I  are  up  to  them. 
He  is  muzzled !  The  bailies  had  proclaimed  a  general  muzzling, 
and  his  master,  studying  strength  and  economy  mainly,  had  en¬ 
compassed  his  huge  jaws  in  a  home-made  apparatus  constructed 
out  of  the  leather  of  some  ancient  breechin .  His  mouth  was 
open  as  far  as  it  could  be;  his  lips  curled  up  in  rage, —  a  sort  of 
terrible  grin;  his  teeth  gleaming,  ready,  from  out  the  darkness; 
the  strap  across  his  mouth  tense  as  a  bowstring;  his  whole  frame 
stiff  with  indignation  and  surprise;  his  roar  asking  us  all  round, 
<(  Did  you  ever  see  the  like  of  this  ? ”  He  looked  a  statue  of 
anger  and  astonishment  done  in  Aberdeen  granite. 

We  soon  had  a  crowd;  the  Chicken  held  on.  “A  knife  !  ” 
cried  Bob;  and  a  cobbler  gave  him  his  knife:  you  know  the  kind 
of  knife,  worn  away  obliquely  to  a  point,  and  always  keen.  I 
put  its  edge  to  the  tense  leather ;  it  ran  before  it ;  and  then ! 
—  one  sudden  jerk  of  that  enormous  head,  a  sort  of  dirty  mist 
about  his  mouth,  no  noise, —  and  the  bright  and  fierce  little  fel¬ 
low  is  dropped,  limp  and  dead.  A  solemn  pause;  this  was  more 
than  any  of  us  had  .bargained  for.  I  turned  the  little  fellow 
over,  and  saw  he  was  quite  dead;  the  mastiff  had  taken  him  by 
the  small  of  the  back  like  a  rat,  and  broken  it. 

He  looked  down  at  his  victim  appeased,  ashamed,  and  amazed; 
snuffed  him  all  over,  stared  at  him,  and  taking  a  sudden  thought, 
turned  round  and  trotted  off.  Bob  took  the  dead  dog  up  and 
said,  (<John,  we’ll  bury  him  after  tea.”  “Yes,”  said  I,  and  was 
off  after  the  mastiff.  He  made  up  the  Cowgate  at  a  rapid  swing; 
he  had  forgotten  some  engagement.  He  turned  up  the  Candle- 
maker  Row,  and  stopped  at  the  Harrow  Inn. 

There  was  a  carrier’s  cart  ready  to  start,  and  a  keen,  thin, 
impatient,  black-a-vised  little  man,  his  hand  at  his  gray  horse’s 
head,  looking  about  angrily  for  something. 

<(  Rab,  ye  thief !  ”  said  he,  aiming  a  kick  at  my  great  friend, 
who  drew  cringing  up,  and  avoiding  the  heavy  shoe  with  more 
agility  than  dignity,  and,  watching  his  master’s  eye,  slunk  dis¬ 
mayed  under  the  cart, —  his  ears  down,  and  as  much  as  he  had 
of  tail  down  too. 

What  a  man  this  must  be, — thought  I, —  to  whom  my  tre¬ 
mendous  hero  turns  tail!  The  carrier  saw  the  muzzle  hanging, 
cut  and  useless,  from  his  neck,  and  I  eagerly  told  him  the  story, 
which  Bob  and  I  always  thought,  and  still  think,  Homer  or  King 
David  or  Sir  Walter  alone  were  worthy  to  rehearse.  The  severe 


JOHN  BROWN 


573 


little  man  was  mitigated,  and  condescended  to  say,  (<  Rab,  my 
man,  puir  Rabbie,” —  whereupon  the  stump  of  a  tail  rose  up,  the 
ears  were  cocked,  the  eyes  filled,  and  were  comforted;  the  two 
friends  were  reconciled.  “Hupp!”  and  a  stroke  of  the  whip 
were  given  to  Jess;  and  off  went  the  three. 

Bob  and  I  buried  the  Game  Chicken  that  night  (we  had  not 
much  of  a  tea)  in  the  back  green  of  his  house  in  Melville 
Street,  No.  17,  with  considerable  gravity  and  silence;  and  being 
at  the  time  in  the  <(  Iliad,”  and,  like  all  boys,  Trojans,  we  called 
him  Hector,  of  course. 


From  «Rab  and  His  Friends. » 


574 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 

(1605-1682) 

he  first  copy  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne’s  <(  Religio  Medici  ”  ap¬ 
peared  in  1643,  when  it  was  printed  from  one  of  his  manu¬ 
scripts  without  his  consent.  He  was  thus  forced  to  become 
famous,  for  when  his  corrected  version  of  the  essay  appeared,  it  gave 
him  at  once  the  place  he  still  holds  among  the  most  notable  essay¬ 
ists  of  modern  times.  He  followed  it  by  his  treatise  on  <(  Vulgar  Er¬ 
rors,  ”  <(  Urn  Burial,”  and  <(  The  Garden  of  Cyrus.  ”  After  his  death  in 
1682,  his  <(  Christian  Morals”  and  <(  Miscellanies  ”  were  published  by 
his  literary  executors. 

The  <(  Religio  Medici”  itself  is  its  author’s  best  biography.  <(Now 
for  my  life,”  he  writes  in  it; — (<  it  is  a  miracle  of  thirty  years,  which 
to  relate  were  not  a  history,  but  a  piece  of  poetry,  and  would  sound  to 
common  ears  like  a  fable;  for  the  world,  I  count  it  not  an  inn,  but  a 
hospital;  and  a  place  not  to  live,  but  to  die  in.”  As  we  examine  the 
intellect  capable  of  this  conception,  we  are  more  and  more  astonished 
at  its  unlikeness  to  what  we  are  accustomed  to  assume  as  realities. 
Living  in  the  England  of  the  civil  wars,  in  a  world  where  Episcopa¬ 
lian  and  Presbyterian,  Calvinist  and  Catholic  were  hacking  and  stab¬ 
bing,  torturing  and  burning  and  decapitating,  he  summed  up  his  poli¬ 
tics  and  his  theology  in  the  sentence:  (<  Natura  nihil  agit  frustra^ : — 

Nothing  is  vain  that  Nature  does; 

The  Perfect  Whole  is  perfect  still! 

In  spite  of  folly,  flaw,  and  crime, 

God’s  law  at  last  shall  work  his  will. 

Resting  secure  in  this  faith,  he  uttered  no  anathemas  and  split  no 
skulls  for  conscience’  sake.  To  him  as  to  Goethe  in  the  midst  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars,  the  disturbance  produced  by  the  evil  passions  ol 
ambition,  hate,  and  anger  were  unreal  and  transitory.  The  universe 
was  still  sane.  The  insane  world  in  which  others  lived  —  Napoleon’s 
world  dominated  by  the  God  who  sides  with  the  best  artillery  —  had 
no  power  over  him.  If  it  be  true  that  at  the  sack  of  Syracuse,  Archi¬ 
medes  was  killed  because  he  rebuked  the  victors  for  interrupting  his 
mathematics,  his  aloofness  from  the  world  of  brutal  struggle  for  sur¬ 
vival  illustrates  a  frame  of  mind  closely  related  to  that  in  which 
Doctor  Browne  quoted  and  translated  Lucan:  — 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


575 


<(  V  icturosque  Dei  cela?it  lit  vivere  durent 
Felix  esse  nioriD 

« We’re  all  deluded,  vainly  searching  ways 
To  make  us  happy  by  the  length  of  days; 

For  cunningly  to  make  ’s  protract  this  breath 
The  gods  conceal  the  happiness  of  death. » 

It  is  hard  for  minds  with  modern  habits  fully  to  understand  a 
thinker  to  whom  Paracelsus  was  a  scientific  authority,  witchcraft  a 
reality,  and  the  firimum  mobile  a  scientific  definition,  but  the  (<Re- 
ligio  Medici w  derives  an  additional  charm  from  the  imperfections 
which  it  owes  to  the  superstition  or  the  imperfect  definitions  of  its 
times.  It  is  never  likely  to  go  out  of  date.  The  passage  of  time 
which  reveals  its  errors  gives  it  a  greater  value  as  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  those  rare  documents  in  which  the  human  mind  has 
recorded  realities,  both  of  strength  and  weakness,  belonging  not 
merely  to  the  individual,  but  to  humanity  itself. 

The  author  of  aReligio  Medici })  was  born  in  London,  October  19th, 
1605.  By  profession  he  was  a  physician,  educated  at  Oxford  and  Ley¬ 
den  in  all  the  learning  of  his  day.  (<Religio  Medici appeared  in  the 
year  in  which  Charles  I.  left  London  to  take  the  field  against  the 
Parliament,  but  Doctor  Browne  practiced  medicine  and  wrote  philos¬ 
ophy  without  interruption  until  the  Restoration.  Charles  II.  knighted 
him,  and  he  lived  to  the  age  of  seventy-seven,  dying,  October  19th, 
1682,  on  the  anniversary  of  his  birth.  W.  V.  B. 


RELIGIO  MEDICI 
Part  I 

For  my  religion,  though  there  be  several  circumstances  that 
might  persuade  the  world  I  have  none  at  all,  as  the  gen¬ 
eral  scandal  of  my  profession,  the  natural  course  of  my 
studies,  the  indifferency  of  my  behavior  and  discourse  in  matters 
of  religion, —  neither  violently  defending  one,  nor  with  that  com¬ 
mon  ardor  and  contention  opposing  another  —  yet  in  despite 
hereof,  I  dare,  without  usurpation,  assume  the  honorable  style  of 
a  Christian.  Not  that  I  merely  owe  this  title  to  the  font,  my 
education,  or  clime  wherein  I  was  born,  as  being  bred  up  either 
to  confirm  those  principles  my  parents  instilled  into  my  under¬ 
standing,  or  by  a  general  consent  proceed  into  the  religion  of 
my  country:  but  having  in  my  riper  years  and  confirmed  judg- 


576 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


ment,  seen  and  examined  all,  I  find  myself  obliged,  by  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  grace,  and  the  law  of  mine  own  reason,  to  embrace  no 
other  name  but  this:  neither  doth  herein  my  zeal  so  far  make 
me  forget  the  general  charity  I  owe  unto  humanity,  as  rather  to 
hate  than  pity  Turks  and  infidels,  and  (what  is  worse)  Jews; 
rather  contenting  myself  to  enjoy  that  happy  style,  than  malign¬ 
ing  those  who  refuse  so  glorious  a  title. 

But  because  the  name  of  a  Christian  is  become  too  general  to 
express  our  faith,  there  being  a  geography  of  religion  as  well  as 
lands,  and  every  clime  distinguished  not  only  by  their  laws  and 
limits,  but  circumscribed  by  their  doctrines  and  rules  of  faith; 
to  be  particular,  I  am  of  that  reformed  new-cast  religion,  wherein 
I  dislike  nothing  but  the  name:  of  the  same  belief  our  Savior 
taught,  the  Apostles  disseminated,  the  fathers  authorized,  and 
martyrs  confirmed;  but  by  the  sinister  ends  of  princes,  the  ambi¬ 
tion  and  avarice  of  prelates,  and  the  fatal  corruption  of  the  times, 
so  decayed,  impaired,  and  fallen  from  its  native  beauty,  that  it  re¬ 
quired  the  careful  and  charitable  hands  of  these  times  to  restore 
it  to  its  primitive  integrity.  Now  the  accidental  occasion  where¬ 
upon,  the  slender  means  whereby,  the  low  and  abject  condition 
of  the  person  by  whom  so  good  a  work  was  set  on  foot,  which 
in  our  adversaries  beget  contempt  and  scorn,  fills  me  with  won¬ 
der,  and  is  the  very  same  objection  the  insolent  pagans  first  cast 
at  Christ  and  his  Disciples. 

Yet  have  I  not  so  shaken  hands  with  those  desperate  resolu¬ 
tions,  who  had  rather  venture  at  large  their  decayed  bottom  than 
bring  her  in  to  be  new  trimmed  in  the  dock;  who  had  rather 
promiscuously  retain  all,  than  abridge  any,  and  obstinately  be 
what  they  are,  than  what  they  have  been,  as  to  stand  in  diame¬ 
ter  and  sword’s  point  with  them:  we  have  reformed  from  them, 
not  against  them;  for  omitting  those  improperations,  and  terms 
of  scurrility  betwixt  us,  which  only  difference  our  affections,  and 
not  our  cause,  there  is  between  us  one  common  name  and  appel¬ 
lation,  one  faith  and  necessary  body  of  principles  common  to  us 
both;  and  therefore  I  am  not  scrupulous  to  converse  and  live 
with  them,  to  enter  their  churches  in  defect  of  ours,  and  either 
pray  with  them,  or  for  them.  I  could  never  perceive  any  rational 
consequence  from  those  many  texts  which  prohibit  the  children 
of  Israel  to  pollute  themselves  with  the  temples  of  the  heathen; 
we  being  all  Christians,  and  not  divided  by  such  detested  impie¬ 
ties  as  might  profane  our  prayers,  or  the  place  wherein  we  make 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


577 


them;  or  that  a  resolved  conscience  may  not  adore  her  Creator 
anywhere,  especially  in  places  devoted  to  his  service;  where  if 
their  devotions  offend  him,  mine  may  please  him;  if  theirs  pro¬ 
fane  it,  mine  may  hallow  it.  Holy  water  and  crucifix  (dangerous 
to  the  common  people)  deceive  not  my  judgment,  nor  abuse  my 
devotion  at  all. 

I  am,  I  confess,  naturally  inclined  to  that  which  misguided 
zeal  terms  superstition:  my  common  conversation  I  do  acknowl¬ 
edge  austere,  my  behavior  full  of  rigor,  sometimes  not  without 
morosity;  yet  at  my  devotion  I  love  to  use  the  civility  of  my 
knee,  my  hat,  and  hand,  with  all  those  outward  and  sensible  mo¬ 
tions  which  may  express  or  promote  my  invisible  devotion.  I 
should  violate  my  own  arm  rather  than  a  church,  nor  willingly 
deface  the  name  of  saint  or  martyr.  At  the  sight  of  a  cross  or 
crucifix  I  can  dispense  with  my  hat,  but  scarce  with  the  thought 
or  memory  of  my  Savior:  I  cannot  laugh  at,  but  rather  pity  the 
fruitless  journeys  of  pilgrims,  or  contemn  the  miserable  condition 
of  friars;  for  though  misplaced  in  circumstances,  there  is  some¬ 
thing  in  it  of  devotion.  I  could  never  hear  the  Ave  Maria  bell 
without  an  elevation,  or  think  it  a  sufficient  warrant,  because 
they  erred  in  one  circumstance,  for  me  to  err  in  all,  that  is,  in 
silence  and  dumb  contempt;  whilst  therefore  they  direct  their 
devotions  to  her,  I  offer  mine  to  God,  and  rectify  the  errors  of 
their  prayers,  by  rightly  ordering  mine  own.  At  a  solemn  pro¬ 
cession  I  have  wept  abundantly,  while  my  consorts,  blind  with 
opposition  and  prejudice,  have  fallen  into  an  excess  of  scorn  and 
laughter.  There  are,  questionless,  both  in  Greek,  Roman,  and 
African  churches,  solemnities  and  ceremonies,  whereof  the  wiser 
zeals  do  make  a  Christian  use,  and  stand  condemned  by  us,  not 
as  evil  in  themselves,  but  as  allurements  and  baits  of  superstition 
to  those  vulgar  heads  that  look  asquint  on  the  face  of  truth,  and 
those  unstable  judgments  that  cannot  consist  in  the  narrow  point 
and  centre  of  virtue  without  a  reel  or  stagger  to  the  circumference. 

As  there  were  many  reformers,  so  likewise  many  reformations; 
every  country  proceeding  in  a  particular  way  and  method,  ac¬ 
cording  as  their  national  interest,  together  with  their  constitution 
and  clime,  inclined  them, —  some  angrily,  and  with  extremity, 
others  calmly  and  with  mediocrity,  not  rending,  but  easily  divid¬ 
ing  the  community,  and  leaving  an  honest  possibility  of  a  recon¬ 
ciliation,  which,  though  peaceable  spirits  do  desire,  and  may 
conceive  that  revolution  of  time  and  the  mercies  of  God  may 
n— 37 


57s 


fcllR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


effect,  yet  that  judgment  that  shall  consider  the  present  antip¬ 
athies  between  the  two  extremes,  their  contrarieties  in  condition, 
affection,  and  opinion,  may  with  the  same  hopes  expect  a  union 
in  the  poles  of  heaven. 

But  to  difference  myself  nearer,  and  draw  into  a  lesser  circle: 
there  is  no  church,  whose  every  part  so  squares  into  my  con¬ 
science;  whose  articles,  constitutions,  and  customs  seem  so  con¬ 
sonant  unto  reason,  and  as  it  were  framed  to  my  particular 
devotion,  as  this  whereof  I  hold  my  belief,  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land,  to  whose  faith  I  am  a  sworn  subject;  and  therefore  in  a 
double  obligation  subscribe  unto  her  articles  and  endeavor  to  ob¬ 
serve  her  constitutions;  whatsoever  is  beyond,  as  points  indiffer¬ 
ent,  I  observe  according  to  the  rules  of  my  private  reason,  or  the 
humor  and  fashion  of  my  devotion;  neither  believing  this,  be¬ 
cause  Luther  affirmed  it,  nor  disapproving  that  because  Calvin 
hath  disavouched  it.  I  condemn  not  all  things  in  the  council  of 
Trent,  nor  approve  all  in  the  synod  of  Dort.  In  brief,  where 
the  Scripture  is  silent,  the  church  is  my  text;  where  that  speaks, 
it  is  but  my  comment:  where  there  is  a  joint  silence  of  both,  I 
borrow  not  the  rules  of  my  religion  from  Rome  or  Geneva,  but 
the  dictates  of  my  own  reason.  It  is  an  unjust  scandal  of  our 
adversaries,  and  a  gross  error  in  ourselves  to  compute  the  na¬ 
tivity  of  our  religion  from  Henry  VIII.,  who,  though  he  reiected 
the  Pope,  refused  not  the  faith  of  Rome,  and  effected  no  more 
than  what  his  own  predecessors  desired  and  essayed  in  ages  past, 
and  was  conceived  the  state  of  Venice  would  have  attempted  in 
our  days.  It  is  as  uncharitable  a  point  in  us  to  fall  upon  those 
popular  scurrilities  and  opprobrious  scoffs  of  the  bishop  of  Rome, 
to  whom,  as  temporal  prince,  we  owe  the  duty  of  good  language. 
I  confess  there  is  a  cause  of  passion  between  us;  by  his  sentence 
I  stand  excommunicated;  heretic  is  the  best  language  he  affords 
me;  yet  can  no  ear  witness,  I  ever  returned  him  the  name  of 
Antichrist,  man  of  sin,  or  whore  of  Babylon.  It  is  the  method 
of  charity  to  suffer  without  reaction;  those  usual  satires  and  in¬ 
vectives  of  the  pulpit  may  perchance  produce  a  good  effect  on 
the  vulgar,  whose  ears  are  opener  to  rhetoric  than  logic;  yet  do 
they  in  no  wise  confirm  the  faith  of  wiser  believers,  who  know 
that  a  good  cause  needs  not  to  be  patroned  by  passion,  but  can 
sustain  itself  upon  a  temperate  dispute. 

I  could  never  divide  myself  from  any  man  upon  the  difference 
of  an  opinion,  or  be  angry  with  his  judgment  for  not  agreeing 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


579 


with  me  in  that  from  which  within  a  few  days  I  should  dissent 
myself.  I  have  no  genius  to  disputes  in  religion,  and  have  often 
thought  it  wisdom  to  decline  them,  especially  upon  a  disadvan¬ 
tage,  or  when  the  cause  of  truth  might  suffer  in  the  weakness  of 
my  patronage.  Where  we  desire  to  be  informed,  it  is  good  to 
contest  with  men  above  ourselves;  but  to  confirm  and  establish 
our  opinions,  it  is  best  to  argue  with  judgments  below  our  own, 
that  the  frequent  spoils  and  victories  over  their  reasons  may  set¬ 
tle  in  ourselves  an  esteem  and  confirmed  opinion  of  our  own. 
Every  man  is  not  a  proper  champion  for  truth,  nor  fit  to  take 
up  the  gauntlet  in  the  cause  of  verity.  Many  from  the  igno¬ 
rance  of  these  maxims,  and  an  inconsiderate  zeal  unto  truth,  have 
too  rashly  charged  the  troops  of  error,  and  remain  as  trophies 
unto  the  enemies  of  truth.  A  man  may  be  in  as  just  possession 
of  truth  as  of  a  city,  and  yet  be  forced  to  surrender,  it  is  there¬ 
fore  far  better  to  enjoy  her  with  peace  than  to  hazard  her  on  a 
battle;  if,  therefore,  there  rise  any  doubts  in  my  way,  I  do  for¬ 
get  them,  or  at  least  defer  them  till  my  better  settled  judgment 
and  more  manly  reason  be  able  to  resolve  them,  for  I  perceive 
every  man’s  own  reason  is  his  best  CEdipus,  and  will,  upon  a 
reasonable  truce,  find  a  way  to  loose  those  bonds  wherewith  the 
subtleties  of  error  have  enchained  our  more  flexible  and  tender 
judgments.  In  philosophy,  where  truth  seems  double-faced,  there 
is  no  man  more  paradoxical  than  myself;  but  in  divinity  I  love 
to  keep  the  road,  and  though  not  in  an  implicit,  yet  a  humble 
faith,  follow  the  great  wheel  of  the  church,  by  which  I  move,  not 
reserving  any  proper  poles  or  motion  from  the  epicycle  of  my 
own  brain;  by  this  means  I  leave  no  gap  for  heresy,  schisms,  or 
errors,  of  which  at  present  I  hope  I  shall  not  injure  truth  to  say 
I  have  no  taint  or  tincture.  I  must  confess  my  greener  studies 
have  been  polluted  with  two  or  three,  not  any  begotten  in  the 
latter  centuries,  but  old  and  obsolete,  such  as  could  never  have 
been  revived,  but  by  such  extravagant  and  irregular  heads  as 
mine;  for  indeed  heresies  perish  not  with  their  authors,  but  like 
the  river  Arethusa,  though  they  lose  their  currents  in  one  place, 
they  rise  up  again  in  another.  One  general  council  is  not  able 
to  extirpate  one  single  heresy;  it  may  be  canceled  for  the  pres¬ 
ent,  but  revolution  of  time,  and  the  like  aspects  from  heaven, 
will  restore  it,  when  it  will  flourish  till  it  be  condemned  again. 
For  as  though  there  were  metempsychosis,  and  the  soul  of  one 
man  passed  into  another,  opinions  do  find,  after  certain  revolu- 


580 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


tions,  men  and  minds  like  those  that  first  begat  them.  To  see 
ourselves  again,  we  need  not  look  for  Plato’s  year:  every  man  is 
not  only  himself;  there  hath  been  many  Diogenes,  and  as  many 
Timons,  though  but  few  of  that  name :  men  are  lived  over 
again,  the  world  is  now  as  it  was  in  ages  past;  there  was  none 
then,  but  there  hath  been  some  one  since  that  parallels  him,  and 
as  it  were  his  revived  self. 

Now  the  first  of  mine  was  that  of  the  Arabians,  that  the  souls 
of  men  perished  with  their  bodies,  but  should  yet  be  raised  again 
at  the  last  day:  not  that  I  did  absolutely  conceive  a  mortality  of 
the  soul;  but  if  that  were,  which  faith,  not  philosophy,  hath  yet 
thoroughly  disproved,  and  that  both  entered  the  grave  together, 
yet  I  held  the  same  conceit  thereof  that  we  all  do  for  the  body, 
that  it  rise  again.  Surely  it  is  but  the  merits  of  our  unworthy 
natures,  if  we  sleep  in  darkness  until  the  last  alarm.  A  serious 
reflex  upon  my  own  unworthiness  did  make  me  backward  from 
challenging  this  prerogative  of  my  soul;  so  that  I  might  enjoy 
my  Savior  at  the  last,  I  could  with  patience  be  nothing  almost 
unto  eternity.  The  second  was  that  of  Origen,  that  God  would  not 
persist  in  his  vengeance  forever,  but,  after  a  definite  time  of  his 
wrath,  he  would  release  the  damned  souls  from  torture:  which 
error  I  fell  into  upon  a  serious  contemplation  of  the  great  attri¬ 
bute  of  God  —  his  mercy;  and  did  a  little  cherish  it  in  myself, 
because  I  found  therein  no  malice,  and  a  ready  weight  to  sway 
me  from  the  other  extreme  of  despair,  whereunto  melancholy 
and  contemplative  natures  are  too  easily  disposed.  A  third  there 
is  which  I  did  never  positively  maintain  or  practice,  but  have 
often  wished  it  had  been  consonant  to  truth,  and  not  offensive 
to  my  religion,  and  that  is  the  prayer  for  the  dead;  whereunto 
I  was  inclined  from  some  charitable  inducements,  whereby  I 
could  scarce  contain  my  prayers  for  a  friend  at  the  ringing  of  a 
bell,  or  behold  his  corpse  without  an  orison  for  his  soul:  it  was 
a  good  way  methought  to  be  remembered  by  posterity,  and  far 
more  noble  than  a  history.  These  opinions  I  never  maintained 
with  pertinacity,  or  endeavored  to  inveigle  any  man's  belief  unto 
mine,  nor  so  much  as  ever  revealed  or  disputed  them  with  my 
dearest  friends;  by  which  means  I  neither  propagated  them  in 
others,  nor  confirmed  them  in  myself;  but,  suffering  them  to 
flame  upon  their  own  substance,  without  addition  of  new  fuel, 
they  went  out  insensibly  of  themselves:  therefore  these  opinions, 
though  condemned  by  lawful  councils,  were  not  heresies  in  me, 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


581 

but  bare  errors,  and  single  lapses  of  my  understanding,  without 
a  joint  depravity  of  my  will.  Those  have  not  only  depraved  un¬ 
derstandings,  but  diseased  affections,  which  cannot  enjoy  a  singu¬ 
larity  without  a  heresy,  or  be  the  authors  of  an  opinion  without 
they  be  of  a  sect  also.  This  was  the  villainy  of  the  first  schism 
of  Lucifer,  who  was  not  content  to  err  alone,  but  drew  into  his 
faction  many  leg'ions,  and  upon  this  experience  he  tempted  only 
Eve,  as  well  understanding  the  communicable  nature  of  sin,  and 
that  to  deceive  but  one  was  tacitly  and  upon  consequence  to 
delude  them  both. 

That  heresies  should  arise,  we  have  the  prophecy  of  Christ; 
but  that  old  ones  should  be  abolished,  we  hold  no  prediction. 
That  there  must  be  heresies  is  true,  not  only  in  our  church,  but 
also  in  any  other:  even  in  the  doctrines  heretical  there  will  be 
super-heresies;  and  Arians  not  only  divided  from  their  church, 
but  also  among  themselves:  for  heads  that  are  disposed  unto 
schism,  and  complexionably  propense  to  innovation,  are  naturally 
indisposed  for  a  community;  nor  will  be  ever  confined  unto  the 
order  or  economy  of  one  body;  and  therefore  when  they  separate 
from  others,  they  knit  but  loosely  among  themselves;  nor  con¬ 
tented  with  a  general  breach  or  dichotomy  with  their  church,  do 
subdivide  and  mince  themselves  almost  into  atoms.  It  is  true 
that  men  of  singular  parts  and  humors  have  not  been  free  from 
singular  opinions  and  conceits  in  all  ages;  retaining  something 
not  only  beside  the  opinion  of  their  own  church  or  any  other, 
but  also  any  particular  author,  which,  notwithstanding  a  sober 
judgment,  may  do  without  offense  or  heresy;  for  there  are  yet, 
after  all  the  degrees  of  councils,  and  the  niceties  of  schools,  many 
things  untouched,  unimagined,  wherein  the  liberty  of  an  honest 
reason  may  play  and  expatiate  with  security,  and  far  without  the 
circle  of  a  heresy. 

As  for  those  wingy  mysteries  in  divinity,  and  airy  subtleties 
in  religion,  which  have  unhinged  the  brains  of  better  heads,  they 
never  stretched  the  pia  mater  of  mine.  Methinks  there  be  not 
impossibilities  enough  in  religion  for  an  active  faith;  the  deepest 
mysteries  ours  contains  have  not  only  been  illustrated,  but  main¬ 
tained  by  syllogism,  and  the  rule  of  reason.  I  love  to  lose  my¬ 
self  in  a  mystery,  to  pursue  my  reason  to  an  O  altitudo!  It  is 
my  solitary  recreation  to  pose  my  apprehension  with  those  in¬ 
volved  enigmas  and  riddles  of  the  Trinity,  with  incarnation  and 
resurrection.  I  can  answer  all  the  objections  of  Satan  and  my 


582 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


rebellious  reason,  with  that  odd  resolution  I  learned  of  Tertullian, 
Certum  est  quia  impossibile  est.  I  desire  to  exercise  my  faith 
in  the  difficultest  point;  for  to  credit  ordinary  and  visible  ob¬ 
jects  is  not  faith,  but  persuasion.  Some  believe  the  better  for 
seeing  Christ’s  sepulchre;  and  when  they  have  seen  the  Red 
Sea,  doubt  not  of  the  miracle.  Now,  contrarily,  I  bless  myself, 
and  am  thankful  that  I  lived  not  in  the  days  of  miracles;  that  1 
never  saw  Christ  nor  his  Disciples.  I  would  not  have  been  one 
of  those  Israelites  that  passed  the  Red  Sea,  nor  one  of  Christ’s 
patients  on  whom  he  wrought  his  wonders;  then  had  my  faith 
been  thrust  upon  me,  nor  should  I  enjoy  that  greater  blessing 
pronounced  to  all  that  believe  and  saw  not.  It  is  an  easy  and 
necessary  belief,  to  credit  what  our  eye  and  sense  hath  examined. 
I  believe  he  was  dead  and  buried,  and  rose  again;  and  desire  to 
see  him  in  his  glory,  rather  than  to  contemplate  him  in  his  ceno¬ 
taph  or  sepulchre.  Nor  is  this  much  to  believe;  as  we  have 
reason,  we  owe  this  faith  unto  history.  They  only  had  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  a  bold  and  noble  faith,  who  lived  before  his  coming, 
who,  upon  obscure  prophecies  and  mystical  types,  could  raise  a 
belief  and  expect  apparent  impossibilities. 

It  is  true  there  is  an  edge  in  all  firm  belief,  and  with  an  easy 
metaphor  we  may  say  the  sword  of  faith;  but  in  these  obscuri¬ 
ties  I  rather  use  it  in  the  adjunct  the  Apostle  gives  it,  a  buckler; 
under  which  I  conceive  a  wary  combatant  may  lie  invulnerable. 
Since  I  was  of  understanding  to  know  we  knew  nothing,  my  rea¬ 
son  hath  been  more  pliable  to  the  will  of  faith;  I  am  now  con¬ 
tent  to  understand  a  mystery  without  a  rigid  definition,  in  an 
easy  and  Platonic  description.  That  allegorical  description  of 
Hermes  pleaseth  me  beyond  all  the  metaphysical  definitions  of 
divines;  where  I  cannot  satisfy  my  reason,  I  love  to  humor  my 
fancy.  I  had  as  lief  you  tell  me  that  anima  est  angelus  hominisy 
est  Corpus  Dei ,  as  Entelechia ;  Liix  est  umbra  Dei ,  as  actus  per - 
spicui ;  where  there  is  an  obscurity  too  deep  for  our  reason,  it  is 
good  to  sit  down  with  a  description,  periphrasis,  or  adumbration; 
for  by  acquainting  our  reason  how  unable  it  is  to  display  the 
visible  and  obvious  effects  of  nature,  it  becomes  more  humble 
and  submissive  unto  the  subtleties  of  faith;  and  thus  I  teach 
my  haggard  and  unreclaimed  reason  to  stoop  unto  the  lure  of 
faith.  I  believe  there  was  already  a  tree  whose  fruit  our  un¬ 
happy  parents  tasted,  though  in  the  same  chapter  where  God 
forbids  it,  it  is  positively  said  the  plants  of  the  fields  were  not 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


583 


yet  grown;  for  God  had  not  caused  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth. 
I  believe  that  the  serpent  (if  we  shall  literally  understand  it), 
from  his  proper  form  and  figure,  made  his  motion  on  his  belly 
before  the  curse.  I  find  the  trial  of  the  pucelage  and  virginity 
of  women,  which  God  ordained  the  Jews,  is  very  fallible.  Expe¬ 
rience  and  history  inform  me  that  not  only  many  particular 
women,  but  likewise  whole  nations,  have  escaped  the  curse  of 
childbirth,  which  God  seems  to  pronounce  upon  the  whole  sex; 
yet  do  I  believe  that  all  this  is  true,  which  indeed  my  reason 
would  persuade  me  to  be  false;  and  this  I  think  is  no  vulgar 
part  of  faith,  to  believe  a  thing  not  only  above,  but  contrary  to 
reason,  and  against  the  arguments  of  our  proper  senses. 

In  my  solitary  and  retired  imagination  ( Neque  enim  cum  por¬ 
tions ,  aut  me  lectulus  accepit ,  desum  mihi ),  I  remember,  I  am  not 
alone,  and  therefore  forget  not  to  contemplate  him  and  his  at¬ 
tributes  who  is  ever  with  me,  especially  those  two  mighty  ones, 
his  wisdom  and  eternity;  with  the  one  I  recreate,  with  the  other 
I  confound  my  understanding :  for  who  can  speak  of  eternity 
without  a  solecism,  or  think  thereof  without  an  ecstasy  ?  Time 
we  may  apprehend.  It  is  but  five  days  older  than  ourselves, 
and  hath  the  same  horoscope  with  the  world;  but  to  retire  so  far 
back  as  to  apprehend  a  beginning,  to  give  such  an  infinite  start 
forwards  as  to  conceive  an  end  in  an  essence  that  we  affirm  hath 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  it  puts  my  reason  to  Saint  Paul’s 
sanctuary.  My  philosophy  dares  not  say  the  angels  can  do  it; 
God  hath  not  made  a  creature  that  can  comprehend  him;  it  is  a 
privilege  of  his  own  nature.  (<  I  am  that  I  am,®  was  his  own 
definition  unto  Moses;  and  it  was  a  short  one,  to  confound  mor¬ 
tality,  that  durst  question  God,  or  ask  him  what  he  was;  indeed 
he  only  is;  all  others  have  been  and  shall  be.  But  in  eternity 
there  is  no  distinction  of  tenses;  and  therefore  that  terrible  term, 
predestination,  which  hath  troubled  so  many  weak  heads  to  con¬ 
ceive,  and  the  wisest  to  explain,  is  in  respect  to  God  no  prescious 
determination  of  our  estates  to  come,  but  a  definitive  blast  of  his 
will  already  fulfilled,  and  at  the  instant  that  he  first  decreed  it; 
for  to  his  eternity  which  is  indivisible,  and  altogether,  the  last 
trump  is  already  sounded,  the  reprobates  in  the  flame,  and  the 
blessed  in  Abraham’s  bosom.  Saint  Peter  speaks  modestly  when 
he  saith  a  thousand  years  to  God  are  but  as  one  day;  for  to  speak 
like  a  philosopher,  those  continued  instances  of  time  which  flow 
into  a  thousand  years,  make  not  to  him  one  moment;  what  to  us 


584 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


is  to  come,  to  his  eternity  is  present,  his  whole  duration  being  but 
one  permanent  point,  without  succession,  parts,  flux,  or  division. 

There  is  no  attribute  that  adds  more  difficulty  to  the  mystery 
of  the  Trinity,  where,  though  in  a  relative  way  of  father  and 
son,  we  must  deny  a  priority.  I  wonder  how  Aristotle  could  con¬ 
ceive  the  world  eternal,  or  how  he  could  make  good  two  eterni¬ 
ties.  His  similitude  of  a  triangle,  comprehended  in  a  square, 
doth  somewhat  illustrate  the  trinity  of  our  souls,  and  that  the 
triple  unity  of  God;  for  there  is  in  us  not  three,  but  a  trinity  of 
souls,  because  there  is  in  us,  if  not  three  distinct  souls,  yet  differ¬ 
ing  faculties,  that  can  and  do  subsist  apart  in  different  subjects, 
and  yet  in  us  are  thus  united  as  to  make  but  one  soul  and  sub¬ 
stance.  If  one  soul  were  so  perfect  as  to  inform  three  distinct 
bodies,  that  were  a  petty  trinity;  conceive  the  distinct  number  of 
three,  not  divided  nor  separated  by  the  intellect,  but  actually 
comprehended  in  its  unity,  and  that  is  a  perfect  trinity.  I  have 
often  admired  the  mystical  way  of  Pythagoras,  and  the  secret 
magic  of  numbers.  Beware  of  philosophy,  is  a  precept  not  to  be 
received  in  too  large  a  sense ;  for  in  this  mass  of  nature  there  is 
a  set  of  things  that  carry  in  their  front,  though  not  in  capital 
letters,  yet  in  stenography  and  short  characters,  something  of 
divinity,  which  to  wiser  reasons  serve  as  luminaries  in  the  abyss 
of  knowledge,  and  to  judicious  beliefs,  as  scales  and  rundles  to 
mount  the  pinnacles  and  highest  pieces  of  divinity.  The  severe 
schools  shall  never  laugh  me  out  of  the  philosophy  of  Hermes, 
that  this  visible  world  is  but  a  picture  of  the  invisible,  wherein, 
as  in  a  portrait,  things  are  not  truly,  but  in  equivocal  shapes, 
and  as  they  counterfeit  some  real  substance  in  that  invisible  fabric. 

That  other  attribute  wherewith  I  recreate  my  devotion  is  his 
wisdom  in  which  I  am  happy;  and  for  the  contemplation  of  this 
only,  do  not  repent  me  that  I  was  bred  in  the  way  of  study; 
the  advantage  I  have  of  the  vulgar,  with  the  content  and  happi¬ 
ness  I  conceive  therein,  is  an  ample  recompense  for  all  my  en¬ 
deavors,  in  what  part  of  knowledge  soever.  Wisdom  is  his  most 
beauteous  attribute ;  no  man  can  attain  unto  it :  yet  Solomon 
pleased  God  when  he  desired  it.  He  is  wise  because  he  knows 
all  things;  and  he  knoweth  all  things  because  he  made  them 
all;  but  his  greatest  knowledge  is  in  comprehending  that  he 
made  not,  that  is,  himself.  And  this  is  also  the  greatest  knowl¬ 
edge  in  man.  For  this  do  I  honor  my  own  profession,  and  em¬ 
brace  the  counsel  even  of  the  devil  himself;  had  he  read  such  a 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


585 


lecture  in  Paradise  as  lie  did  at  Delphos,  we  had  better  known 
ourselves;  nor  had  we  stood  in  fear  to  know  him.  I  know  God 
is  wise  in  all,  wonderful  in  what  we  conceive,  but  far  more  in 
what  we  comprehend  not;  for  we  behold  him  but  asquint  upon 
reflex  or  shadow;  our  understanding  is  dimmer  than  Moses’s  eye; 
we  are  ignorant  of  the  back  parts  or  lower  side  of  his  divinity; 
therefore  to  pry  into  the  maze  of  his  counsels  is  not  only  folly 
in  man,  but  presumption  even  in  angels;  like  us,  they  are  his 
servants,  not  his  senators;  he  holds  no  counsel  but  that  mystical 
one  of  the  Trinity,  wherein  though  there  be  three  persons,  there 
is  but  one  mind  that  decrees  without  contradiction;  nor  needs 
he  any;  his  actions  are  not  begot  with  deliberation,  his  wisdom 
naturally  knows  what  is  best;  his  intellect  stands  ready  fraught 
with  the  superlative  and  purest  ideas  of  goodness;  consultation 
and  election,  which  are  two  motions  in  us,  make  but  one  in  him, — ■ 
his  action  springing  from  his  power  at  the  first  touch  of  his  will. 
These  are  contemplations  metaphysical;  my  humble  speculations 
have  another  method,  and  are  content  to  trace  and  discover  those 
expressions  he  hath  left  in  his  creatures,  and  the  obvious  effects 
of  nature;  there  is  no  danger  to  profound  these  mysteries,  no 
sanctum  sanctorum  in  philosophy;  the  world  was  made  to  be  in¬ 
habited  by  beasts,  but  studied  and  contemplated  by  man:  it  is 
the  debt  of  our  reason  we  owe  unto  God,  and  the  homage  we  pay 
for  not  being  beasts;  without  this,  the  world  is  still  as  though 
it  had  not  been,  or  as  it  was  before  the  sixth  day,  when  as  yet 
there  was  not  a  creature  that  could  conceive  or  say  there  was  a 
world.  The  wisdom  of  God  receives  small  honor  from  those 
vulgar  heads  that  rudely  stare  about,  and  with  a  gross  rusticity 
admire  his  works;  those  highly  magnify  him  whose  judicious 
inquiry  into  his  acts,  and  deliberate  research  into  his  creatures, 
return  the  duty  of  a  devout  and  learned  admiration.  Therefore,, 

<(  Search  where  thou  wilt,  and  let  thy  reason  go 
To  ransom  truth  even  to  th’  abyss  below; 

Rally  the  scattered  causes:  and  that  line 
Which  nature  twists,  be  able  to  untwine ; 

It  is  thy  Maker’s  will,  for  unto  none, 

But  unto  reason  can  he  e’er  be  known. 

The  devils  do  know  thee,  but  those  damn’d  meteors 
Build  not  thy  glory,  but  confound  thy  creatures. 

Teach  my  endeavors  so  thy  works  to  read, 

That  learning  them  in  thee,  I  may  proceed. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


586 


Give  thou  my  reason  that  instructive  flight, 

Whose  weary  wings  may  on  thy  hands  still  light. 

Teach  me  to  soar  aloft,  yet  ever  so, 

When  near  the  sun  to  stoop  again  below. 

Thus  shall  my  humble  feathers  safely  hover, 

And  though  near  earth,  more  than  the  heavens  discover. 
And  then  at  last,  when  homeward  I  shall  drive 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  nature  to  my  hive, 

There  will  I  sit,  like  that  industrious  fly, 

Buzzing  thy  praises,  which  shall  never  die, 

Till  death  abrupts  them,  and  succeeding  glory 
Bid  me  go  on  in  a  more  lasting  story. » 

And  this  is  almost  all  wherein  a  humble  creature  may  endeavor 
to  requite,  and  some  way  to  retribute  unto  his  Creator:  for  if 
not  he  that  saith  (<  Lord,  Lord,  but  he  that  doth  the  will  of  his 
Father,  shall  be  saved,  ®  certainly  our  wills  must  be  our  per¬ 
formances,  and  our  intents  make  out  our  actions;  otherwise  our 
pious  labors  shall  find  anxiety  in  our  graves,  and  our  best  en¬ 
deavors  not  hope,  but  fear  a  resurrection. 

There  is  but  one  first  cause,  and  four  second  causes  of  all 
things;  some  are  without  efficient,  as  God;  others  without  matter, 
as  angels;  some  without  form,  as  the  first  matter:  but  every 
essence,  created  or  uncreated,  hath  its  final  cause,  and  some 
positive  end  both  of  its  essence  and  operation;  this  is  the  cause 
I  grope  after  in  the  works  of  nature;  on  this  hangs  the  providence 
of  God.  To  raise  so  beauteous  a  structure,  as  the  world  and  the 
creatures  thereof,  was  but  his  art;  but  their  sundry  and  divided 
operations,  with  their  predestinated  ends,  are  from  the  treasure  of 
his  wisdom.  In  the  causes,  nature,  and  affections  of  the  eclipses 
of  the  sun  and  moon,  there  is  most  excellent  speculation;  but  to 
profound  further,  and  to  contemplate  a  reason  why  his  provi¬ 
dence  hath  so  disposed  and  ordered  their  motions  in  that  vast 
circle  as  to  conjoin  and  obscure  each  other,  is  a  sweeter  piece 
of  reason  and  a  diviner  point  of  philosophy;  therefore  sometimes, 
and  in  some  things,  there  appears  to  me  as  much  divinity  in 
Galen’s  books  <(De  Usu  Partium,”  as  in  Suarez’s  <(  Metaphysics.  ® 
Had  Aristotle  been  as  curious  in  the  inquiry  of  this  cause  as  he 
was  of  the  other,  he  had  not  left  behind  him  an  imperfect  piece 
of  philosophy,  but  an  absolute  tract  of  divinity. 

<(  Nat  lira  nihil  aget  frustra ,}>  is  the  only  indisputed  axiom  in 
philosophy.  There  are  no  grotesques  in  nature;  not  anything 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


587 

framed  to  fill  up  empty  cantons,  and  unnecessary  spaces:  in  the 
most  imperfect  creatures,  and  such  as  were  not  preserved  in  the 
ark,  but,  having  their  seeds  and  principles  in  the  womb  of  na¬ 
ture,  are  everywhere,  where  the  power  of  the  sun  is,  in  these  is 
the  wisdom  of  his  hand  discovered.  Out  of  this  rank  Solomon 
chose  the  objects  of  admiration;  indeed,  what  reason  may  not  go 
to  school  to  the  wisdom  of  bees,  ants,  and  spiders  ?  what  wise 
hand  teacheth  them  to  do  what  reason  cannot  teach  us  ?  ruder 
heads  stand  amazed  at  those  prodigious  pieces  of  nature,  whales, 
elephants,  dromedaries,  and  camels;  these  I  confess  are  the  colos¬ 
sus  and  majestic  pieces  of  her  hand:  but  in  these  narrow  engines 
there  is  more  curious  mathematics;  and  the  civility  of  these  little 
citizens  more  neatly  sets  forth  the  wisdom  of  their  Maker.  Who 
admires  not  Regiomontanus’s  fly  beyond  his  eagle,  or  wonders 
not  more  at  the  operation  of  two  souls  in  those  little  bodies,  than 
but  one  in  the  trunk  of  a  cedar  ?  I  could  never  content  my 
contemplation  with  those  general  pieces  of  wonder,  the  flux  and 
reflux  of  the  sea,  the  increase  of  Nile,  the  conversion  of  the 
needle  to  the  north,  and  have  studied  to  match  and  parallel 
those  in  the  more  obvious  and  neglected  pieces  of  nature,  which 
without  further  travel  I  can  do  in  the  cosmography  of  myself. 
We  carry  with  us  the  wonders  we  seek  without  us;  there  is  all 
Africa  and  her  prodigies  in  us;  we  are  that  bold  and  adventurous 
piece  of  nature,  which  he  that  studies  wisely  learns  in  a  com¬ 
pendium,  what  others  labor  at  in  a  divided  piece  and  endless 
volume. 

Thus  there  are  two  books  from  whence  I  collect  my  divinity 
—  besides  that  written  one  of  God,  another  of  his  servant  nature; 
that  universal  and  public  manuscript,  that  lies  expanded  unto  the 
eyes  of  all  —  those  that  never  saw  him  in  the  one  have  dis¬ 
covered  him  in  the  other.  This  was  the  scripture  and  theology 
of  the  heathen.  The  natural  motion  of  the  sun  made  them  more 
admire  him  than  its  supernatural  station  did  the  children  of 
Israel;  the  ordinary  effects  of  nature  wrought  more  admiration 
in  them  than  in  the  other  all  his  miracles:  surely  the  heathen 
knew  better  how  to  join  and  read  these  mystical  letters  than  we 
Christians,  who  cast  a  more  careless  eye  on  these  common  hiero¬ 
glyphics,  and  disdain  to  suck  divinity  from  the  flowers  of  nature. 
Nor  do  I  so  forget  God  as  to  adore  the  name  of  nature;  which 
I  define  not  with  the  schools,  to  be  the  principle  of  motion  and 
rest,  but  that  straight  and  regular  line,  that  settled  and  constant 


588 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


course  the  wisdom  of  God  hath  ordained  the  actions  of  his  crea¬ 
tures,  according  to  their  several  kinds.  To  make  a  revolution 
every  day  is  the  nature  of  the  sun,  because  of  that  necessary 
course  which  God  hath  ordained  it,  from  which  it  cannot  swerve, 
by  a  faculty  from  that  voice  which  first  did  give  it  motion. 
Now  this  course  of  nature  God  seldom  alters  or  perverts,  but 
like  an  excellent  artist  hath  so  contrived  his  work,  that  with  the 
self-same  instrument,  without  a  new  creation,  he  may  effect  his  ob¬ 
scurest  designs.  Thus  he  sweeteneth  the  water  with  a  wood,  and 
preserveth  the  creatures  in  the  ark,  which  the  blast  of  his  mouth 
might  have  as  easily  created;  for  God  is  like  a  skillful  geometri¬ 
cian,  who  when  more  easily,  and  with  one  stroke  of  his  compass, 
he  might  describe  or  divide  a  right  line,  had  yet  rather  to  do 
this  in  a  circle  or  longer  way,  according  to  the  constituted  and 
forelaid  principles  of  his  art:  yet  this  rule  of  his  he  doth  some¬ 
times  pervert,  to  acquaint  the  world  with  his  prerogative,  lest 
the  arrogancy  of  our  reason  should  question  his  power,  and  con¬ 
clude  he  could  not.  And  thus  I  call  the  effects  of  nature  the 
works  of  God,  whose  hand  and  instrument  she  only  is;  and  there¬ 
fore  to  ascribe  his  actions  unto  her  is  to  devolve  the  honor  of 
the  principal  agent  upon  the  instrument;  which,  if  with  reason 
we  may  do,  then  let  our  hammers  rise  up  and  boast  they  have 
built  our  houses,  and  our  pens  receive  the  honor  of  our  writing. 
I  hold  there  is  a  general  beauty  in  the  works  of  God,  and  there¬ 
fore  no  deformity  in  any  kind  or  species  of  creature  whatsoever. 
I  cannot  tell  by  what  logic  we  call  a  toad,  a  bear,  or  an  elephant 
ugly,  they  being  created  in  those  outward  shapes  and  figures 
which  best  express  the  actions  of  their  inward  forms,  and  having 
passed  that  general  visitation  of  God,  who  saw  that  all  that  he 
had  made  was  good,  that  is,  conformable  to  his  will,  which  abhors 
deformity,  and  is  the  rule  of  order  and  beauty.  There  is  no  de¬ 
formity  but  in  monstrosity,  wherein,  notwithstanding,  there  is  a 
kind  of  beauty;  nature  so  ingeniously  contriving  the  irregular 
parts,  as  they  become  sometimes  more  remarkable  than  the  prin¬ 
cipal  fabric.  To  speak  yet  more  narrowly,  there  was  never  any 
thing  ugly  or  misshapen,  but  the  chaos;  wherein  notwithstanding, 
to  speak  strictly,  there  was  no  deformity,  because  no  form,  nor 
was  it  yet  impregnate  by  the  voice  of  God.  Now  nature  is  not 
at  variance  with  art,  nor  art  with  nature:  they  being  both  serv¬ 
ants  of  his  providence.  Art  is  the  perfection  of  nature;  were 
the  world  now  as  it  was  the  sixth  day,  there  were  yet  a  chaos. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  589 

Nature  hath  made  one  world,  and  art  another.  In  brief,  all 
things  are  artificial;  for  nature  is  the  art  of  God. 

This  is  the  ordinary  and  open  way  of  his  providence,  which 
art  and  industry  have  in  a  good  part  discovered,  whose  effects 
we  may  foretell  without  an  oracle:  to  foreshow  these  is  not 
prophecy,  but  prognostication.  There  is  another  way  full  of 
meanders  and  labyrinths,  whereof  the  devil  and  spirits  have  no 
exact  ephemerides,  and  that  is  a  more  particular  and  obscure 
method  of  his  providence,  directing  the  operations  of  individuals 
and  single  essences:  this  we  call  fortune,  that  serpentine  and 
crooked  line,  whereby  he  draws  those  actions  his  wisdom  intends 
in  a  more  unknown  and  secret  way:  this  cryptic  and  involved 
method  of  his  providence  have  I  ever  admired,  nor  can  I  relate 
the  history  of  my  life,  the  occurrences  of  my  days,  the  escapes 
of  dangers,  and  hits  of  chance,  with  a  Bezo  las  Manos  to  for¬ 
tune,  or  a  bare  gramercy  to  my  good  stars.  Abraham  might 
have  thought  the  ram  in  the  thicket  came  thither  by  accident  ; 
human  reason  would  have  said  that  mere  chance  conveyed  Moses 
in  the  ark  to  the  sight  of  Pharaoh’s  daughter:  what  a  labyrinth 
is  there  in  the  story  of  Joseph,  able  to  convert  a  stoic!  Surely 
there  are  in  every  man’s  life  certain  rubs,  doublings,  and  wrenches, 
which  pass  awhile  under  the  effects  of  chance,  but  at  the  last, 
well  examined,  prove  the  mere  hand  of  God.  It  was  not  dumb 
chance  that,  to  discover  the  fougade  or  powder  plot,  contrived  a 
miscarriage  in  the  letter.  I  like  the  victory  of  Eighty-eight  the 
better  for  that  one  occurrence  which  our  enemies  imputed  to  our 
dishonor,  and  the  partiality  of  fortune,  to  wit,  the  tempests  and 
contrariety  of  winds.  King  Philip  did  not  detract  from  the  na¬ 
tion,  when  he  said  he  sent  his  Armada  to  fight  with  men,  and 
not  to  combat  with  the  winds.  Where  there  is  a  manifest  dis¬ 
proportion  between  the  powers  and  forces  of  two  several  agents, 
upon  a  maxim  of  reason  we  may  promise  the  victory  to  the  su¬ 
perior;  but  when  unexpected  accidents  slip  in,  and  untliought-of 
occurrences  intervene,  these  must  proceed  from  a  power  that  owes 
no  obedience  to  those  axioms;  where,  as  in  the  writing  upon  the 
wall,  we  may  behold  the  hand,  but  see  not  the  spring  that  moves 
it.  The  success  of  that  petty  province  of  Holland  (of  which  the 
grand  seignor  proudly  said,  if  they  should  trouble  him  as  they 
did  the  Spaniard,  he  would  send  his  men  with  shovels  and  pick- 
axes,  and  throw  it  into  the  sea)  I  cannot  altogether  ascribe  to  the 
ingenuity  and  industry  of  the  people,  but  the  mercy  of  God,  that 


590  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 

hath  disposed  them  to  such  a  thriving  genius;  and  to  the  will  of 
his  Providence,  that  disposeth  her  favor  to  each  country  in  their 
preordinate  season.  All  cannot  be  happy  at  once;  for  because 
the  glory  of  one  state  depends  upon  the  ruin  of  another,  there 
is  a  revolution  and  vicissitude  of  their  greatness,  and  the}^  must 
obey  the  swing  of  that  wheel,  not  moved  by  intelligences,  but 
by  the  hand  of  God,  whereby  all  estates  arise  to  their  zenith 
and  vertical  points,  according  to  their  predestinated  periods.  For 
the  lives  not  only  of  men,  but  of  commonwealths  and  the  whole 
world,  run  not  upon  a  helix  that  still  enlargeth,  but  on  a  circle, 
where,  arriving  to  their  meridian,  they  decline  in  obscurity  and 
fall  under  the  horizon  again. 

These  must  not  therefore  be  named  the  effects  of  fortune,  but 
in  a  relative  way,  and  as  we  term  the  works  of  nature:  it  was 
the  ignorance  of  man’s  reason  that  begat  this  very  name,  and  by 
a  careless  term  miscalled  the  providence  of  God:  for  there  is  no 
liberty  for  causes  to  operate  in  a  loose  and  straggling  way;  nor 
any  effect  whatsoever,  but  hath  its  warrant  from  some  universal 
or  superior  cause.  It  is  not  a  ridiculous  devotion  to  say  a  prayer 
before  a  game  at  tables;  for  even  in  sortileges  and  matters  of 
greatest  uncertainty,  there  is  a  settled  and  pre-ordered  course  of 
effects.  It  is  we  that  are  blind,  not  fortune:  because  our  eye  is 
too  dim  to  discover  the  mystery  of  her  effects,  we  foolishly  paint 
her  blind,  and  hoodwink  the  providence  of  the  Almighty.  I  can¬ 
not  justify  that  contemptible  proverb,  that  fools  only  are  fortu¬ 
nate;  or  that  insolent  paradox,  that  a  wise  man  is  out  of  the 
reach  of  fortune;  much  less  those  opprobrious  epithets  of  poets, 
bawd,  and  strumpet.  It  is,  I  confess,  the  common  fate  of  men  of 
singular  gifts  of  mind,  to  be  destitute  of  those  of  fortune;  which 
doth  not  any  way  deject  the  spirit  of  wiser  judgments,  who 
thoroughly  understand  the  justice  of  this  proceeding;  and  being 
enriched  with  higher  donatives,  cast  a  more  careless  eye  on  these 
vulgar  parts  of  felicity.  It  is  a  most  unjust  ambition  to  desire 
to  engross  the  mercies  of  the  Almighty,  not  to  be  content  with 
the  goods  of  mind,  without  a  possession  of  those  of  body  or  for¬ 
tune;  and  it  is  an  error  worse  than  heresy,  to  adore  these  com- 
plemental  and  circumstantial  pieces  of  felicity,  and  undervalue 
those  perfections  and  essential  points  of  happiness,  wherein  we 
resemble  our  Maker.  To  wiser  desires  it  is  satisfaction  enough 
to  deserve,  though  not  to  enjoy,  the  favors  of  fortune;  let  Provi¬ 
dence  provide  for  fools.  It  is  not  partiality,  but  equity  in  God. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


59l 

who  deals  with  us  but  as  our  natural  parents:  those  that  are  able 
of  body  and  mind  he  leaves  to  their  deserts;  to  those  of  weaker 
merits  he  imparts  a  larger  portion,  and  pieces  out  the  defect  of 
one  by  the  excess  of  the  other.  Thus  have  we  no  just  quarrel 
with  nature,  for  leaving  us  naked;  or  to  envy  the  horns,  hoofs, 
skins,  and  furs  of  other  creatures,  being  provided  with  reason, 
that  can  supply  them  all.  We  need  not  labor  with  so  many  ar¬ 
guments  to  confute  judicial  astrology;  for  if  there  be  a  truth 
therein,  it  doth  not  injure  divinity.  If  to  be  born  under  Mercury 
disposeth  us  to  be  witty,  under  Jupiter  to  be  wealthy,  I  do  not 
owe  a  knee  unto  these,  but  unto  that  merciful  Hand  that  hath 
ordered  my  indifferent  and  uncertain  nativity  unto  such  benevo¬ 
lent  aspects.  Those  that  hold  that  all  things  are  governed  by 
fortune,  had  not  erred,  had  they  not  persisted  there:  the  Romans 
that  erected  a  temple  to  Fortune,  acknowledged  therein,  though 
in  a  blinder  way,  somewhat  of  divinity;  for  in  a  wise  supputation 
all  things  begin  and  end  in  the  Almighty.  There  is  a  nearer 
way  to  heaven  than  Homer’s  chain;  an  easy  logic  may  conjoin 
heaven  and  earth  in  one  argument,  and  with  less  than  a  sorites 
resolve  all  things  into  God.  For  though  we  christen  effects  by 
their  most  sensible  and  nearest  causes,  yet  is  God  the  true  and 
infallible  cause  of  all,  whose  concourse,  though  it  be  general,  yet 
doth  it  subdivide  itself  into  the  particular  actions  of  everything, 
and  is  that  spirit  by  which  each  singular  essence  not  only  sub¬ 
sists,  but  performs  its  operations. 

The  bad  construction,  and  perverse  comment  on  this  pair  of 
second  causes,  or  visible  hands  of  God,  have  perverted  the  devo¬ 
tion  of  many  unto  atheism,  who,  forgetting  the  honest  advisoes 
of  faith,  have  listened  unto  the  conspiracy  of  passion  and  reason. 
I  have  therefore  always  endeavored  to  compose  those  feuds  and 
angry  dissensions  between  affection,  faith,  and  reason;  for  there 
is  in  our  soul  a  kind  of  triumvirate,  or  triple  government  of  three 
competitors,  which  distract  the  peace  of  this  our  commonwealth, 
not  less  than  did  that  other  the  state  of  Rome. 

As  reason  is  a  rebel  unto  faith,  so  passion  unto  reason;  as 
the  propositions  of  faith  seem  absurd  unto  reason,  so  the  theo¬ 
rems  of  reason  unto  passion,  and  both  unto  faith;  yet  a  moderate 
and  peaceable  discretion  may  so  state  and  order  the  matter,  that 
they  may  be  all  kings,  and  yet  make  but  one  monarchy,  every 
one  exercising  his  sovereignty  and  prerogative  in  a  due  time 
and  place,  according  to  the  restraint  and  limit  of  circumstance. 


59  2 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


There  are,  as  in  philosophy,  so  in  divinity,  sturdy  doubts  and  bois¬ 
terous  objections,  wherewith  the  unhappiness  of  our  knowledge 
too  nearly  acquainteth  us.  More  of  these  no  man  hath  known 
than  myself,  which  I  confess  I  conquered,  not  in  a  martial  pos¬ 
ture,  but  on  my  knees.  For  our  endeavors  are  not  only  to  com¬ 
bat  with  doubts,  but  always  to  dispute  with  the  devil:  the  villainy 
of  that  spirit  takes  a  hint  of  infidelity  from  our  studies,  and  by 
demonstrating  a  naturality  in  one  way,  makes  us  mistrust  a  mir¬ 
acle  in  another.  Thus  having  perused  the  archidoxes,  and  read 
the  secret  sympathies  of  things,  he  would  dissuade  my  belief 
from  the  miracle  of  the  brazen  serpent,  make  me  conceit  that 
image  worked  by  sympathy,  and  was  but  an  Egyptian  trick  to 
cure  their  diseases  without  a  miracle.  Again,  having  seen  some 
experiments  of  bitumen,  and  having  read  far  more  of  naphtha, 
he  whispered  to  my  curiosity  the  fire  of  the  altar  might  be  nat¬ 
ural,  and  bid  me  mistrust  a  miracle  in  Elias,  when  he  intrenched 
the  altar  round  with  water;  for  that  inflammable  substance  yields 
not  easily  unto  water,  but  flames  in  the  arms  of  its  antagonist. 
And  thus  would  he  inveigle  my  belief  to  think  the  combustion 
of  Sodom  might  be  natural,  and  that  there  was  an  asphaltic  and 
bituminous  nature  in  that  lake  before  the  fire  of  Gomorrah.  I 
know  that  manna  is  now  plentifully  gathered  in  Calabria;  and 
Josephus  tells  me,  in  his  days  it  was  as  plentiful  in  Arabia.  The 
devil,  therefore,  made  the  query:  <( Where  was  then  the  miracle 
in  the  days  of  Moses  ? The  Israelites  saw  but  that  in  his  time 
the  natives  of  those  countries  behold  in  ours.  Thus  the  devil 
played  at  chess  with  me,  and,  yielding  a  pawn,  thought  to  gain  a 
queen  of  me,  taking  advantage  of  my  honest  endeavors;  and 
whilst  I  labored  to  raise  the  structure  of  my  reason,  he  strived 
to  undermine  the  edifice  of  my  faith. 

Neither  had  these  nor  any  other  ever  such  advantage  of  me  as 
to  incline  me  to  any  point  of  infidelity  or  desperate  positions  of 
atheism;  for  I  have  been  these  many  years  of  opinion  there  was 
never  any.  Those  that  held  religion  was  the  difference  of  man 
from  beasts,  have  spoken  probably,  and  proceed  upon  a  principle 
as  inductive  as  the  other.  That  doctrine  of  Epicurus  that  de¬ 
nied  the  providence  of  God  was  no  atheism,  but  a  magnificent 
and  high-strained  conceit  of  his  majesty,  which  he  deemed  too 
sublime  to  mind  the  trivial  actions  of  those  inferior  creatures. 
That  fatal  necessity  of  the  stoics  is  nothing  but  the  immutable 
law  of  his  will.  Those  that  heretofore  denied  the  divinity  of  the 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


593 


Holy  Ghost  have  been  condemned,  but  as  heretics;  and  those 
that  now  deny  our  Savior  (though  more  than  heretics)  are  not 
so  much  as  atheists;  for  though  they  deny  two  persons  in  the 
Trinity,  they  hold,  as  we  do,  there  is  but  one  God. 

That  villain  and  secretary  of  hell,  that  composed  that  mis¬ 
creant  piece  of  the  (<  Three  Impostors, ®  though  divided  from  all 
religions,  and  was  neither  Jew,  Turk,  nor  Christian,  was  not  a 
positive  atheist.  I  confess  every  country  hath  its  Machiavel, 
every  age  its  Lucian,  whereof  common  heads  must  not  hear,  nor 
advanced  judgments  too  rashly  venture  on;  it  is  the  rhetoric  of 
Satan,  and  may  pervert  a  loose  or  prejudicate  belief. 

I  confess  I  have  perused  them  all,  and  can  discover  nothing 
that  may  startle  a  discreet  belief;  yet  are  their  heads  carried  off 
with  the  wind  and  breath  of  such  motives.  I  remember  a  doctor 
in  physic  of  Italy  who  could  not  perfectly  believe  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  because  Galen  seemed  to  make  a  doubt  thereof. 
With  another  I  was  familiarly  acquainted  in  France,  a  divine,  and 
a  man  of  singular  parts,  that  on  the  same  point  was  so  plunged 
and  graveled  with  three  lines  of  Seneca,  that  all  our  antidotes, 
drawn  from  both  Scripture  and  philosophy,  could  not  expel  the 
poison  of  his  error.  There  are  a  set  of  heads  that  can  credit  the 
relations  of  mariners,  yet  question  the  testimonies  of  Saint  Paul; 
and  peremptorily  maintain  the  traditions  of  FElian  or  Pliny,  yet 
in  histories  of  Scripture  raise  queries  and  objections,  believing 
no  more  than  they  can  parallel  in  human  authors.  I  confess 
there  are  in  Scripture  stories  that  do  exceed  the  fables  of  poets, 
and  to  a  captious  reader  sound  like  Gargantua  or  Bevis,  Search 
all  the  legends  of  times  past,  and  the  fabulous  conceits  of  these 
present,  and  it  will  be  hard  to  find  one  that  deserves  to  carry 
the  buckler  unto  Sampson;  yet  is  all  this  of  an  easy  possibility, 
if  we  conceive  a  divine  concourse,  or  an  influence  from  the  little 
finger  of  the  Almighty.  It  is  impossible  that  either  in  the  dis¬ 
course  of  man,  or  in  the  infallible  voice  of  God,  to  the  weakness 
of  our  apprehensions  there  should  not  appear  irregularities,  con¬ 
tradictions,  and  antinomies.  Myself  could  show  a  catalogue  of 
doubts,  never  yet  imagined  or  questioned,  as  I  know,  which  are 
not  resolved  at  the  first  hearing;  not  fantastic  queries  or  objec¬ 
tions  of  air;  for  I  cannot  hear  of  atoms  in  divinity.  I  can  read 
the  history  of  the  pigeon  that  was  sent  out  of  the  ark,  and  re¬ 
turned  no  more,  yet  not  question  how  she  found  out  her  mate 
that  was  left  behind;  that  Lazarus  was  raised  from  the  dead,  yet 
11—38 


594 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


not  demand  wherein  the  interim  his  soul  awaited,  or  raise  a  law 
case,  whether  his  heir  might  lawfully  detain  his  inheritance  be¬ 
queathed  unto  him  by  his  death,  and  he,  though  restored  to  life, 
have  no  plea  or  title  unto  his  former  possessions.  Whether  Eve 
was  framed  out  of  the  left  side  of  Adam,  I  dispute  not;  because 
I  stand  not  yet  assured  which  is  the  right  side  of  a  man,  or 
whether  there  be  any  such  distinction  in  nature.  That  she  was 
edified  out  of  the  rib  of  Adam,  I  believe,  yet  raise  no  question 
who  shall  arise  with  that  rib  at  the  Resurrection.  Whether  Adam 
was  an  hermaphrodite,  as  the  rabbins  contend  upon  the  letter  of 
the  text,  because  it  is  contrary  to  reason  there  should  be  an 
hermaphrodite  before  there  was  a  woman;  or  a  composition  of 
two  natures,  before  there  was  a  second  composed.  Likewise, 
whether  the  world  was  cheated  in  autumn,  summer,  or  the  spring, 
because  it  was  created  in  them  all;  for  whatsoever  sign  the  sun 
possesseth,  those  four  seasons  are  actually  existent:  it  is  the  na¬ 
ture  of  this  luminary  to  distinguish  the  several  seasons  of  the 
year,  all  which  it  makes  at  one  time  in  the  whole  earth,  and  suc¬ 
cessively  in  any  part  thereof.  There  are  a  bundle  of  curiosities, 
not  only  in  philosophy,  but  in  divinity,  proposed  and  discussed  by 
men  of  most  supposed  abilities,  which  indeed  are  not  worthy  our 
vacant  hours,  much  less  our  serious  studies, —  pieces  only  fit  to 
be  placed  in  Pantagruel’s  library,  or  bound  up  with  Tartaretus’s 
<(  De  Modo  CacandiA 

These  are  niceties  that  become  not  those  that  peruse  so  seri¬ 
ous  a  mystery;  there  are  others  more  generally  questioned  and 
called  to  the  bar,  yet  methinks  of  an  easy  and  possible  truth. 

It  is  ridiculous  to  put  off,  or  drown,  the  general  flood  of 
Noah,  in  that  particular  inundation  of  Deucalion;  that  there  was 
a  deluge  once  seems  not  to  me  so  great  a  miracle  as  that  there 
is  not  one  always.  How  all  the  kinds  of  creatures,  not  only  in 
their  own  bulks,  but  with  a  competency  of  food  and  sustenance, 
might  be  preserved  in  one  ark,  and  within  the  extent  of  three 
hundred  cubits,  to  a  reason  that  rightly  examines  it,  will  appear 
very  feasible.  There  is  another  secret  not  contained  in  the 
Scripture,  which  is  more  hard  to  comprehend,  and  puts  the  honest 
father  to  the  refuge  of  a  miracle:  and  that  is,  not  only  how  the 
distinct  pieces  of  the  world  and  divided  islands  should  be  first 
planted  by  men,  but  inhabited  by  tigers,  panthers,  and  bears. 
How  America  abounded  with  beasts  of  prey  and  noxious  animals, 
yet  contained  not  in  it  that  necessary  creature,  a  horse  is  very 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


595 


strange.  By  what  passage  those,  not  only  birds,  but  dangerous 
and  unwelcome  beasts  came  over,  how  there  be  creatures  there 
which  are  not  found  in  this  triple  continent,  all  which  must 
needs  be  strange  unto  us,  that  hold  but  one  ark,  and  that  the 
creatures  began  their  progress  from  the  mountains  of  Ararat. 
They  who  to  solve  this  would  make  the  deluge  particular  pro¬ 
ceed  upon  a  principle  that  I  can  no  way  grant;  not  only  upon 
the  negative  of  Holy  Scriptures,  but  of  my  own  reason,  whereby 
I  can  make  it  probable  that  the  world  was  as  well  peopled  in  the 
time  of  Noah  as  in  ours;  and  fifteen  hundred  years  to  people 
the  world  as  full  a  time  for  them  as  four  thousand  years  since 
have  been  to  us.  There  are  other  assertions  and  common  tenets 
drawn  from  Scripture,  and  generally  believed  as  Scripture,  where- 
unto,  notwithstanding,  I  would  not  betray  the  liberty  of  my  rea¬ 
son.  It  is  a  paradox  to  me,  that  Methusalem  was  the  longest 
lived  of  all  the  children  of  Adam,  and  no  man  will  be  able  to 
prove  it,  when,  from  the  process  of  the  text,  I  can  manifest  it 
may  be  otherwise.  That  Judas  perished  by  hanging  himself 
there  is  no  certainty  in  Scripture;  though  in  one  place  it  seems 
to  affirm  it,  and  by  a  doubtful  word  hath  given  occasion  to  trans¬ 
late  it,  yet  in  another  place,  in  a  more  punctual  description,  it 
makes  it  improbable  and  seems  to  overthrow  it.  That  our 
fathers,  after  the  flood,  erected  the  tower  of  Babel,  to  preserve 
themselves  against  a  second  deluge,  is  generally  opinioned  and 
believed,  yet  is  there  another  intention  of  theirs  expressed  in 
Scripture.  Besides,  it  is  improbable,  from  the  circumstance  of 
the  place,  that  is,  a  plain  in  the  land  of  Shinar.  These  are  no 
points  of  faith,  and  therefore  may  admit  a  free  dispute.  There 
are  yet  others,  and  those  familiarly  conclude  from  the  text, 
wherein  (under  favor)  I  see  no  consequence ;  the  Church  of 
Rome  confidently  proves  the  opinion  of  tutelary  angels,  from 
that  answer  when  Peter  knocked  at  the  door,  (<  It  is  not  he,  but 
his  angel  w ;  that  is,  might  some  say,  his  messenger,  or  somebody 
from  him, — for  so  the  original  signifies,  and  is  as  likely  to  be  the 
doubtful  phrase’s  meaning.  This  exposition  I  once  suggested  to 
a  young  divine,  that  answered  upon  this  point;  to  which  I  re¬ 
member  the  Franciscan  opponent  replied  no  more  but  that  it 
was  a  new,  and  no  authentic,  interpretation. 

These  are  but  the  conclusions  and  fallible  discourses  of  man 
upon  the  word  of  God.  Such  I  do  believe  the  Holy  Scriptures; 
yet  were  it  of  man,  I  could  not  choose  but  say  it  was  the  singu- 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


596 

larest  and  superlative  piece  that  hath  been  extant  since  the  crea¬ 
tion;  were  I  a  pagan,  I  should  not  refrain  the  lecture  of  it,  and 
cannot  but  commend  the  judgment  of  Ptolemy,  that  thought  not 
his  library  complete  without  it.  The  Alcoran  of  the  Turks  (I 
speak  without  prejudice)  is  an  ill-composed  piece,  containing  in  it 
vain  and  ridiculous  errors  in  philosophy,  impossibilities,  fictions, 
and  vanities  beyond  laughter,  maintained  by  evident  and  open 
sophisms,  the  policy  of  ignorance,  deposition  of  universities,  and 
banishment  of  learning,  that  hath  gotten  foot  by  arms  and  vio¬ 
lence;  this,  without  a  blow,  hath  disseminated  itself  through  the 
whole  earth.  It  is  not  unremarkable  what  Philo  first  observed^ 
that  the  lav/  of  Moses  continued  two  thousand  years  without  the 
least  alteration ;  whereas,  we  see  the  laws  of  other  common¬ 
wealths  do  alter  with  occasions, —  and  even  those  that  pretend 
their  original  from  some  divinity,  to  have  vanished  without  trace 
or  memory.  I  believe,  besides  Zoroaster,  there  were  divers  that 
wrote  before  Moses,  who,  notwithstanding,  have  suffered  the  com¬ 
mon  fate  of  time.  Men’s  works  have  an  age  like  themselves, 
and  though  they  outlive  their  authors,  yet  have  they  a  stint  and 
period  to  their  duration.  This  only  is  a  work  too  hard  for  the 
teeth  of  time,  and  cannot  perish  but  in  the  general  flames,  when 
all  things  shall  confess  their  ashes. 

I  have  heard  some  with  deep  sighs  lament  the  lost  lines  of 
Cicero;  others  with  as  many  groans  deplore  the  combustion  of 
the  library  of  Alexandria.  For  my  own  part,  I  think  there  be 
too  many  in  the  world,  and  could  with  patience  behold  the  urn 
and  ashes  of  the  Vatican,  could  I,  with  a  few  others,  recover  the 
perished  leaves  of  Solomon,  I  would  not  omit  a  copy  of  Enoch’s 
<(  Pillars, w  had  they  many  nearer  authors  than  Josephus,  or  did  not 
relish  somewhat  of  the  fable.  Some  men  have  written  more  than 
others  have  spoken.  Pineda  quotes  more  authors  in  one  work 
than  are  necessary  an  a  whole  world.  Of  those  three  great  in¬ 
ventions  in  Germany,  there  are  two  which  are  not  without  their 
incommodities,  and  it  is  disputable  whether  they  exceed  not  their 
use  and  commodities.  It  is  not  a  melancholy  utinam  of  my  own, 
but  the  desires  of  better  heads,  that  there  were  a  general  synod ;  not 
to  unite  the  incompatible  difference  of  religion,  but  for  the  benefit 
of  learning,  to  reduce  it  as  it  lay  at  first,  in  a  few  and  solid  authors, 
and  to  condemn  to  the  fire  those  swarms  and  millions  of  rhap¬ 
sodies,  begotten  only  to  distract  and  abuse  the  weaker  judgments  of 
scholars  and  to  maintain  the  trade  and  mystery  of  typographers. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


597 


I  cannot  but  wonder  with  what  exception  the  Samaritans 
could  confine  their  belief  to  the  Pentateuch,  or  five  books  of 
Moses  I  am  ashamed  at  the  rabbinical  interpretation  of  the 
Jews  upon  the  Old  Testament,  as  much  as  their  defection  from 
the  New.  And  truly  it  is  beyond  wonder  how  that  contempt¬ 
ible  and  degenerate  issue  of  Jacob  once  so  devoted  to  ethnic 
superstition,  and  so  easily  seduced  to  the  idolatry  of  their  neigh¬ 
bors,  should  now,  in  such  an  obstinate  and  peremptory  belief, 
adhere  unto  their  own  doctrine,  expect  impossibilities,  and,  in 
the  face  and  eye  of  the  church,  persist  without  the  least  hope 
of  conversion.  This  is  a  vice  in  them,  that  were  a  virtue  in 
us;  for  obstinacy  in  a  bad  cause  is  but  constancy  in  a  good. 
And  herein  I  must  accuse  those  of  my  own  religion,  for  there 
is  not  any  of  such  a  fugitive  faith,  such  an  unstable  belief, 
as  a  Christian;  none  that  do  so  oft  transform  themselves,  not 
unto  several  shapes  of  Christianity,  and  of  the  same  species, 
but  unto  more  unnatural  and  contrary  forms,  of  Jew  and  Ma¬ 
hometan;  that  from  the  name  of  Savior  can  condescend  to  the 
bare  term  of  prophet,  and  from  an  old  belief  that  he  is  come 
fall  to  a  new  expectation  of  his  coming.  It  is  the  promise  of 
Christ  to  make  us  all  one  flock;  but  how,  and  when  this  union 
shall  be,  is  as  obscure  to  me  as  the  last  day.  Of  those  four 
members  of  religion,  we  hold  a  slender  proportion;  there  are,  I 
confess,  some  new  additions,  yet  small  to  those  which  accrue  to 
our  adversaries,  and  those  only  drawn  from  the  revolt  of  pagans, 
men  but  of  negative  impieties,  and  such  as  deny  Christ  but  be¬ 
cause  they  never  heard  of  him.  But  the  religion  of  the  Jews  is 
expressly  against  the  Christian;  and  the  Mahometan  against  both. 
For  the  Turk,  in  the  bulk  he  now  stands,  is  beyond  all  hope 
of  conversion;  if  he  fall  asunder,  there  may  be  conceived  hopes, 
but  not  without  strong  improbabilities.  The  Jews  are  obstinate 
in  all  fortunes;  the  persecution  of  fifteen  hundred  years  hath  but 
confirmed  them  in  their  error;  they  have  already  endured  what¬ 
soever  may  be  inflicted,  and  have  suffered,  in  a  bad  cause,  even 
to  the  condemnation  of  their  enemies.  Persecution  is  a  bad  and 
indirect  way  to  plant  religion;  it  hath  been  the  unhappy  method 
of  angry  devotions,  not  only  to  confirm  honest  religion,  but  wicked 
heresies  and  extravagant  opinions.  It  was  the  first  stone  and 
basis  of  our  faith;  none  can  more  justly  boast  of  persecutions, 
and  glory  in  the  number  and  valor  of  martyrs;  for,  to  speak 
properly,  those  are  true,  and  almost  only  examples  of  fortitude. 


59s 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


Those  that  are  fetched  from  the  field,  or  drawn  from  the  actions 
of  the  camp,  are  not  ofttimes  so  truly  precedents  of  valor  and 
audacity,  and  at  the  best  attain  but  to  some  bastard  piece  of 
fortitude.  If  we  shall  strictly  examine  the  circumstances  and 
requisites  which  Aristotle  requires  to  true  and  perfect  valor,  we 
shall  find  the  name  only  in  his  master,  Alexander,  and  as  little 
in  that  Roman  worthy,  Julius  Caesar;  and  if  any,  in  that  easy 
and  active  way,  have  done  so  nobly  as  to  deserve  that  name,  yet 
in  the  passive  and  more  terrible  piece  these  have  surpassed,  and 
in  a  more  heroical  way  may  claim  the  honor  of  that  title.  It  is 
not  in  the  power  of  every  honest  faith  to  proceed  thus  far  or 
pass  to  heaven  through  the  flames;  every  one  hath  it  not  in  that 
full  measure,  or  in  so  audacious  and  resolute  a  temper,  as  to  en¬ 
dure  those  terrible  tests  and  trials;  who,  notwithstanding,  in  a 
peaceable  way  do  truly  adore  their  Savior,  and  have,  no  doubt,  a 
faith  acceptable  in  the  eyes  of  God. 

Now,  as  all  that  die  in  the  war  are  not  termed  soldiers,  so 
neither  can  I  properly  term  all  those  that  suffer  in  matters  of 
religion,  martyrs.  The  council  of  Constance  condemns  John  Huss 
for  a  heretic;  the  stories  of  his  own  party  style  him  a  martyr. 
He  must  needs  offend  the  divinity  of  both,  that  says  he  was 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  There  are  many  (questionless) 
canonized  on  earth  that  shall  never  be  saints  in  heaven ;  and 
have  their  names  in  histories  and  martyrologies,  who  in  the  eyes 
of  God  are  not  so  perfect  martyrs  as  was  that  wise  heathen, 
Socrates,  that  suffered  on  a  fundamental  point  of  religion,  the 
unity  of  God.  I  have  often  pitied  the  miserable  bishop  that 
suffered  in  the  cause  of  antipodes,  yet  cannot  choose  but  accuse 
him  of  as  much  madness  for  exposing  his  living  on  such  a  trifle, 
as  those  of  ignorance  and  folly,  that  condemned  him.  I  think 
my  conscience  will  not  give  me  the  lie  if  I  say  there  are  not 
many  extant  that  in  a  noble  way  fear  the  face  of  death  less  than 
myself;  yet  from  the  moral  duty  I  owe  to  the  commandment  of 
God,  and  the  natural  respects  that  I  tender  unto  the  conserva¬ 
tion  of  my  essence  and  being,  I  would  not  perish  upon  a  cere¬ 
mony,  politic  points,  or  indifferency.  Nor  is  my  belief  of  that 
untractable  temper  as  not  to  bow  at  their  obstacles,  or  connive  at 
matters  wherein  there  are  not  manifest  impieties.  The  leaven, 
therefore,  and  ferment  of  all,  not  only  civil,  but  religious  actions, 
is  wisdom;  without  which,  to  commit  ourselves  to  the  flames  is 
homicide,  and,  I  fear,  but  to  pass  through  one  fire  into  another. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


599 


That  miracles  are  ceased,  I  can  neither  prove  nor  absolutely 
deny,  much  less  define  the  time  and  period  of  their  cessation. 
That  they  survived  Christ  is  manifest  upon  the  record  of  Scrip¬ 
ture;  that  they  outlived  the  Apostles  also,  and  were  revived  at 
the  conversion  of  nations,  many  years  after,  we  cannot  deny  if 
we  shall  not  question  those  writers  whose  testimonies  we  do  not 
controvert  in  points  that  make  for  our  own  opinions;  therefore, 
that  may  have  some  truth  in  it  that  is  reported  by  the  Jesuits 
of  their  miracles  in  the  Indies.  I  could  wish  it  were  true,  or  had 
any  other  testimony  than  their  own  pens.  They  may  easily  be¬ 
lieve  those  miracles  abroad,  who  daily  conceive  a  greater  at  home, 
the  transmutation  of  those  visible  elements  into  the  body  and 
blood  of  our  Savior.  For  the  conversion  of  water  into  wine, 
which  he  wrought  in  Cana,  or  what  the  devil  would  have  had 
him  do  in  the  wilderness,  of  stones  into  bread,  compared  to  this, 
will  scarce  deserve  the  name  of  a  miracle.  Though,  indeed,  to 
speak  properly,  there  is  not  one  miracle  greater  than  another, 
they  being  the  extraordinary  effects  of  the  hand  of  God,  to  which 
all  things  are  of  an  equal  facility,  and  to  create  the  world  as 
easy  as  one  single  creature.  For  this  is  also  a  miracle,  not  only 
to  produce  effects  against  or  above  nature,  but  before  nature; 
and  to  create  nature  as  great  a  miracle  as  to  contradict  or  tran¬ 
scend  her.  We  do  too  narrowly  define  the  power  of  God,  re¬ 
straining  it  to  our  capacities.  I  hold  that  God  can  do  all  things; 
how  he  should  work  contradictions  I  do  not  understand,  yet  dare 
not,  therefore,  deny.  I  cannot  see  why  the  angel  of  God  should 
question  Esdras  to  recall  the  time  past,  if  it  were  beyond  his 
own  power;  or  that  God  should  pose  mortality  in  that  which  he 
was  not  able  to  perform  himself.  I  will  not  say  God  cannot, 
but  he  will  not  perform  many  things,  which  we  plainly  affirm  he 
cannot:  this  I  am  sure  is  the  mannerliest  proposition,  wherein, 
notwithstanding,  I  hold  no  paradox.  For  strictly,  his  power  is  the 
same  with  his  will,  and  they  both  with  all  the  rest  do  make  but 
one  God. 

Therefore,  that  miracles  have  been  I  do  believe;  that  they 
may  yet  be  wrought  by  the  living  I  do  not  deny,  but  have  no 
confidence  in  those  which  are  fathered  on  the  dead;  and  this 
hath  ever  made  me  suspect  the  efficacy  of  relics,  to  examine  the 
bones,  question  the  habits  and  appurtenances  of  saints,  and  even 
of  Christ  himself.  I  cannot  conceive  why  the  cross  that  Helena 
found,  and  whereon  Christ  himself  died,  should  have  power  to 


6oo 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


restore  others  unto  life.  I  excuse  not  Constantine  from  a  fall  off 
his  horse,  or  a  mischief  from  his  enemies,  upon  the  wearing 
those  nails  on  his  bridle  which  our  Savior  bore  upon  the  cross 
in  his  hands.  I  compute  among  pice  fraudes ,  nor  many  degrees 
before  consecrated  swords  and  roses,  that  which  Baldwin,  King 
of  Jerusalem,  returned  the  Genoese  for  their  cost  and  pains  in 
his  war,  to  wit,  the  ashes  of  John  the  Baptist.  Those  that  hold 
the  sanctity  of  their  souls  doth  leave  behind  a  tincture  and 
sacred  faculty  on  their  bodies,  speak  naturally  of  miracles,  and 
do  not  solve  the  doubt.  Now,  one  reason  I  tender  so  little  de¬ 
votion  unto  relics  is,  I  think,  the  slender  and  doubtful  respect  I 
have  always  held  unto  antiquities.  For  that  indeed  which  I  ad¬ 
mire  is  far  before  antiquity,  that  is,  eternity,  and  that  is  God 
himself;  who,  though  he  be  styled  the  Ancient  of  Days,  cannot 
receive  the  adjunct  of  antiquity,  who  was  before  the  world,  and 
shall  be  after  it,  yet  is  not  older  than  it;  for  in  his  years  there 
is  no  climacter;  his  duration  is  eternity,  and  far  more  venerable 
than  antiquity. 

But  above  all  things  I  wonder  how  the  curiosity  of  wiser 
heads  could  pass  that  great  and  indisputable  miracle,  the  cessa¬ 
tion  of  oracles;  and  in  what  swoon  their  reasons  lay,  to  content 
themselves,  and  sit  down  with  such  a  far-fetched  and  ridiculous 
reason  as  Plutarch  allege th  for  it.  The  Jews  that  can  believe 
the  supernatural  solstice  of  the  sun  in  the  days  of  Joshua  have 
yet  the  impudence  to  deny  the  eclipse,  which  every  pagan  con¬ 
fessed  at  his  death.  But  for  this,  it  is  evident  beyond  all  contra¬ 
diction,  the  devil  himself  confessed  it.  Certainly  it  is  not  a 
warrantable  curiosity  to  examine  the  verity  of  Scripture  by  the 
concordance  of  human  history,  or  seek  to  confirm  the  chronicle 
of  Hester  or  Daniel  by  the  authority  of  Megasthenes  or  Herodo¬ 
tus.  I  confess  I  have  had  an  unhappy  curiosity  this  way,  till  I 
laughed  myself  out  of  it  with  a  piece  of  Justin,  where  he  deliv¬ 
ers  that  the  children  of  Israel,  for  being  scabbed,  were  banished 
out  of  Egypt.  And  truly,  since  I  have  understood  the  occur¬ 
rences  of  the  world,  and  know  in  what  counterfeit  shapes  and 
deceitful  vizards  times  present  represent  on  the  stage  things 
past,  I  do  believe  them  little  more  than  things  to  come.  Some 
have  been  of  my  opinion,  and  endeavored  to  write  the  history  of 
their  own  lives;  wherein  Moses  hath  outgone  them  all,  and  left 
not  only  the  story  of  his  life,  but,  as  some  will  have  it,  of  his 
death  also. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


601 


It  is  a  riddle  to  me  how  this  story  of  oracles  hath  not  wormed 
out  of  the  world  that  doubtful  conceit  of  spirits  and  witches; 
how  so  many  learned  heads  should  so  far  forget  their  meta¬ 
physics,  and  destroy  the  ladder  and  scale  of  creatures,  as  to  ques¬ 
tion  the  existence  of  spirits:  for  my  part,  I  have  ever  believed, 
and  do  now  know,  that  there  are  witches.  They  that  doubt  of 
these,  do  not  only  deny  them,  but  spirits;  and  are  obliquely,  and 
upon  consequence  a  sort,  not  of  infidels,  but  atheists.  Those 
that,  to  confute  their  incredulity,  desire  to  see  apparitions,  shall 
questionless  never  behold  any,  nor  have  the  power  to  be  so  much 
as  witches.  The  devil  hath  them  already  in  a  heresy  as  capital 
as  witchcraft;  and  to  appear  to  them  were  but  to  convert  them. 
Of  all  the  delusions  wherewith  he  deceives  mortality,  there  is  not 
any  that  puzzleth  me  more  than  the  legerdemain  of  changelings. 
I  do  not  credit  those  transformations  of  reasonable  creatures  into 
beasts,  or  that  the  devil  hath  a  power  to  transpeciate  a  man  into 
a  horse,  who  tempted  Christ  (as  a  trial  of  his  divinity)  to  convert 
but  stones  into  bread.  I  could  believe  that  spirits  use  with  man 
the  act  of  carnality,  and  that  in  both  sexes.  I  conceive  they  may 
assume,  steal,  or  contrive  a  body,  wherein  there  may  be  action 
enough  to  content  decrepit  lust,  or  passion  to  satisfy  more  active 
veneries;  yet  in  both,  without  a  possibility  of  generation:  and 
therefore  that  opinion  that  Antichrist  should  be  born  of  the  tribe 
of  Dan,  by  conjunction  with  the  devil,  is  ridiculous,  and  a  con¬ 
ceit  fitter  for  a  rabbin  than  a  Christian.  I  hold  that  the  devil 
doth  really  possess  some  men,  the  spirit  of  melancholy  others, 
the  spirit  of  delusion  others;  that  as  the  devil*  is  concealed  and 
denied  by  some,  so  God  and  good  angels  are  pretended  by  others, 
whereof  the  late  defection  of  the  maid  of  Germany  hath  left  a 
pregnant  example. 

Again,  I  believe  that  all  that  use  sorceries,  incantations,  and 
spells  are  not  witches,  or,  as  we  term  them,  magicians.  I  conceive 
there  is  a  traditional  magic,  not  learned  immediately  from  the 
devil,  but  at  second-hand  from  his  scholars,  who,  having  once  the 
secret  betrayed,  are  able,  and  do  empirically  practice  without  his 
advice,  they  proceeding  upon  the  principles  of  nature;  where  ac¬ 
tives  aptly  conjoined  to  disposed  passives,  will  under  any  master 
produce  their  effects.  Thus  I  think  at  first  a  part  of  philosophy 
was  witchcraft,  which  being  afterward  derived  to  one  another, 
proved  but  philosophy,  and  was  indeed  no  more  but  the  honest 
effects  of  nature.  What  invented  by  us  is  philosophy,  .learned 


6  02 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


from  him  is  magic.  We  do  surely  owe  the  discovery  of  many 
secrets  to  the  discovery  of  good  and  bad  angels.  I  could  never 
pass  that  sentence  of  Paracelsus  without  an  asterisk,  or  annota¬ 
tion;  (< Ascendens  const  ellatum  mult  a  revelat ,  queer  entibus  magnalia 
natures ,  i.  e.,  opera  Dei. w  I  do  think  that  many  mysteries  ascribed 
to  our  own  inventions  have  been  the  courteous  revelations  of 
spirits,  for  those  noble  essences  in  heaven  bear  a  friendly  regard 
unto  their  fellow-nature  on  earth;  and  therefore  believe  that 
those  many  prodigies  and  ominous  prognostics  which  forerun  the 
ruins  of  states,  princes,  and  private  persons  are  the  charitable 
premonitions  of  good  angels,  which  more  careless  inquiries  term 
but  the  effects  of  chance  and  nature. 

Now,  besides  these  particular  and  divided  spirits,  there  may 
be,  for  aught  I  know,  an  universal  and  common  spirit  to  the 
whole  world.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Plato,  and  it  is  yet  of  the 
Hermetical  philosophers,  If  there  be  a  common  nature  that  unites 
and  ties  the  scattered  and  divided  individuals  into  one  species, 
why  may  there  not  be  one  that  unites  them  all  ?  However,  I 
am  sure  there  is  a  common  spirit  that  plays  within  us,  yet  makes 
no  part  in  us;  and  that  is  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  fire  and  scintil¬ 
lation  of  that  noble  and  mighty  essence,  which  is  the  life  and 
radical  heat  of  spirits,  and  those  essences  that  know  not  the 
virtue  of  the  sun,  a  fire  quite  contrary  to  the  fire  of  hell.  This 
is  that  gentle  heat  that  brooded  on  the  waters,  and  in  six  days 
hatched  the  world;  this  is  that  irradiation  that  dispels  the  mists 
of  hell,  the  clouds  of  horror,  fear,  sorrow,  despair, —  and  pre¬ 
serves  the  region  of  the  mind  in  serenity.  Whosoever  feels  not 
the  warm  gale  and  gentle  ventilation  of  this  spirit  (though  I  feel 
his  pulse),  I  dare  not  say  he  lives:  for  truly,  without  this,  to  me 
there  is  no  heat  under  the  tropic;  nor  any  light,  though  I  dwelt 
in  the  body  of  the  sun. 

<(  As  when  the  laboring  sun  hath  wrought  his  track 
Up  to  the  top  of  lofty  Cancer’s  back, 

The  icy  ocean  cracks,  the  frozen  pole 
Thaws  with  the  heat  of  the  celestial  coal; 

So  when  thy  absent  beams  begin  t’impart 
Again  a  solstice  on  my  frozen  heart, 

My  winter’s  o’er,  my  drooping  spirits  sing, 

And  every  part  revives  into  a  spring. 

But  if  thy  quick’ning  beams  awhile  decline, 

And  with  their  light  bless  not  this  orb  of  mine, 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


603 


A  chilly  frost  surpriseth  every  member, 

And  in  the  midst  of  June  I  feel  December. 

Oh,  how  this  earthly  temper  doth  debase 
The  noble  soul,  in  this  her  humble  place! 

Whose  wingy  nature  ever  doth  aspire 
To  reach  that  place  whence  first  it  took  its  fire. 

These  flames  I  feel,  which  in  my  heart  do  dwell, 

Are  not  thy  beams,  but  take  their  fire  from  hell. 

Oh,  quench  them  all,  and  let  thy  light  divine, 

Be  as  the  sun  to  this  poor  orb  of  mine : 

And  to  thy  sacred  spirit  convert  those  fires, 

Whose  earthly  fumes  choke  my  devout  aspires.0 

Therefore  for  spirits,  I  am  so  far  from  denying  their  exist¬ 
ence  that  I  could  easily  believe  that  not  only  whole  countries, 
but  particular  persons,  have  their  tutelary  and  guardian  angels. 
It  is  not  a  new  opinion  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  but  an  old  one 
of  Pythagoras  and  Plato.  There  is  no  heresy  in  it,  and  if  not 
manifestly  defined  in  Scripture,  yet  is  an  opinion  of  a  good  and 
wholesome  use  in  the  course  and  actions  of  a  man’s  life,  and 
would  serve  as  an  hypothesis  to  solve  many  doubts,  whereof 
common  philosophy  affordeth  no  solution.  Now,  if  you  demand 
my  opinion  and  metaphysics  of  their  natures,  I  confess  them  very 
shallow,  most  of  them  in  a  negative  way,  like  that  of  God,  or  in 
a  comparative,  between  ourselves  and  fellow-creatures;  for  there 
is  in  this  universe  a  stair,  or  manifest  scale  of  creatures,  rising 
not  disorderly  or  in  confusion,  but  with  a  comely  method  and 
proportion.  Between  creatures  of  mere  existence  and  things  of 
life,  there  is  a  large  disproportion  of  nature;  between  plants  and 
animals  and  creatures  of  sense,  a  wider  difference;  between  them 
and  man,  a  far  greater:  and  if  the  proportion  hold  on,  between 
man  and  angels  there  should  be  yet  a  greater.  We  do  not  com¬ 
prehend  their  natures,  who  retain  the  first  definition  of  Porphyry, 
and  distinguish  them  from  ourselves  by  immortality;  for  before 
his  fall,  it  is  thought  man  also  was  immortal;  yet  must  we  needs 
afifirm  that  he  had  a  different  essence  from  the  angels.  Having, 
therefore,  no  certain  knowledge  of  their  natures,  it  is  no  bad 
method  of  the  schools,  whatsoever  perfection  we  find  obscurely 
in  ourselves,  in  a  more  complete  and  absolute  way  to  ascribe 
unto  them.  I  believe  they  have  an  extemporary  knowledge,  and 
upon  the  first  motion  of  their  reason  do  what  we  cannot  without 
study  or  deliberation;  that  they  know  things  by  their  forms,  and 


604  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 

define  by  specifical  difference  what  we  describe  by  accidents  and 
properties, —  and  therefore  probabilities  to  us  may  be  demonstra¬ 
tions  unto  them;  that  they  have  knowledge  not  only  of  the  spe¬ 
cifical,  but  numerical  forms  of  individuals,  and  understand  by 
what  reserved  difference  each  single  hypostasis  (besides  the  rela¬ 
tion  to  its  species)  becomes  its  numerical  self.  That  as  the  soul 
hath  power  to  move  the  body  it  informs,  so  there  is  a  faculty  to 
move  any,  though  inform  none ;  ours  upon  restraint  of  time, 
place,  and  distance.  But  that  invisible  hand  that  conveyed  Hab- 
akkuk  to  the  lions’  den,  or  Philip  to  Azotos,  infringeth  this  rule, 
and  hath  a  secret  conveyance,  wherewith  mortality  is  not  ac¬ 
quainted.  If  they  have  that  intuitive  knowledge,  whereby,  as  in 
reflection,  they  behold  the  thoughts  of  one  another,  I  cannot  per¬ 
emptorily  deny  but  they  know  a  great  part  of  ours.  They  that 
to  refute  the  invocation  of  saints  have  denied  that  they  have  any 
knowledge  of  our  affairs  below,  have  proceeded  too  far,  and  must 
pardon  my  opinion,  till  I  can  thoroughly  answer  that  piece  of 
Scripture,  <(  At  the  conversion  of  a  sinner  the  angels  in  heaven 
rejoice.  ®  I  cannot  with  those  in  that  great  Father  securely  in¬ 
terpret  the  work  of  the  first  day,  fiat  lux ,  to  the  creation  of  an¬ 
gels,  though  I  confess  there  is  not  any  creature  that  hath  so  near 
a  glimpse  of  their  nature,  as  light  in  the  sun  and  elements. 
We  style  it  a  bare  accident,  but  where  it  subsists  alone  it  is  a 
spiritual  substance,  and  may  be  an  angel;  in  brief,  conceive  light 
invisible,  and  that  is  a  spirit. 

These  are  certainly  the  magisterial  and  masterpieces  of  the 
Creator,  the  flower,  or,  as  we  may  say,  the  best  part  of  nothing, 
actually  existing,  what  we  are  but  in  hopes,  and  probability;  we 
are  only  that  amphibious  piece  between  a  corporeal  and  spiritual 
essence,  that  middle  form  that  links  those  two  together,  and 
makes  good  the  method  of  God  and  nature,  that  jumps  not  from 
extremes,  but  unites  the  incompatible  distances  by  some  middle 
and  participating  natures.  That  we  are  the  breath  and  similitude 
of  God,  it  is  indisputable,  and  upon  record  of  Holy  Scripture;  but 
to  call  ourselves  a  microcosm,  or  little  world,  I  thought  it  only  a 
pleasant  trope  of  rhetoric,  till  my  near  judgment  and  second 
thoughts  told  me  there  was  a  real  truth  therein :  for  first  we  are 
a  rude  mass,  and  in  the  rank  of  creatures,  which  only  are,  and 
have  a  dull  kind  of  being  not  yet  privileged  with  life,  or  pre¬ 
ferred  to  sense  or  reason ;  next  we  live  the  life  of  plants,  the  life 
of  animals,  the  life  of  men,  and  at  last  the  life  of  spirits,  running 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


605 


in  one  mysterious  nature  those  five  kinds  of  existences,  which 
comprehend  the  creatures  not  only  of  the  world,  but  of  the  uni¬ 
verse.  Thus  is  man  that  great  and  true  amphibium,  whose  nature 
is  disposed  to  live  not  only  like  other  creatures  in  divers  ele¬ 
ments,  but  in  divided  and  distinguished  worlds.  For  though  there 
be  but  one  to  sense,  there  are  two  to  reason ;  the  one  visible,  the 
ether  invisible,  whereof  Moses  seems  to  have  left  description,  and 
of  the  other  so  obscurely,  that  some  parts  thereof  are  yet  in  con¬ 
troversy.  And  truly  for  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  I  must 
confess  a  great  deal  of  obscurity;  though  divines  have  to  the 
power  of  human  reason  endeavored  to  make  all  go  in  a  literal 
meaning,  yet  those  allegorical  interpretations  are  also  probable* 
and  perhaps  the  mystical  method  of  Moses,  bred  up  in  the  hiero- 
glyphical  schools  of  the  Egyptians. 

Now,  for  that  immaterial  world,  methinks  we  need  not  wan¬ 
der  so  far  as  beyond  the  First  Movable;  for  even  in  this  material 
fabric  the  spirits  walk  as  freely  exempt  from  the  affection  of 
time,  place,  and  motion,  as  beyond  the  extremest  circumference. 
Do  but  extract  from  the  corpulency  of  bodies,  or  resolve  things 
beyond  their  first  matter,  and  you  discover  the  habitation  of 
angels,  which,  if  I  call  the  ubiquitary  and  omnipresent  essence 
of  God,  I  hope  I  shall  not  offend  divinity;  for  before  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  the  world  God  was  really  all  things.  For  the  angels  he 
created  no  new  world,  or  determinate  mansion,  and  therefore 
they  are  everywhere  where  is  his  essence,  and  do  live  at  a  dis¬ 
tance  even  in  himself.  That  God  made  all  things  for  man  is  in 
some  sense  true,  yet  not  so  far  as  to  subordinate  the  creation  of 
those  purer  creatures  unto  ours,  though  as  ministering  spirits 
they  do,  and  are  willing  to  fulfill  the  will  of  God  in  these  lower 
and  sublunary  affairs  of  man.  God  made  all  things  for  himself, 
and  it  is  impossible  he  should  make  them  for  any  other  end 
than  his  own  glory.  It  is  all  he  can  receive,  and  all  that  is  with¬ 
out  himself:  for  honor  being  an  external  adjunct,  and  in  the  hon- 
orer  rather  than  in  the  person  honored,  it  was  necessary  to  make 
a  creature  from  whom  he  might  receive  his  homage,  and  that  is, 
in  the  other  world  angels,  in  this  man:  which  when  we  neglect, 
we  forget  the  very  end  of  our  creation,  and  may  justly  provoke 
God,  not  only  to  repent  that  he  hath  made  the  world,  but  that 
he  hath  sworn  he  would  not  destroy  it.  That  there  is  but  one 
world  is  a  conclusion  of  faith.  Aristotle,  with  all  his  philosophy, 
hath  not  been  able  to  prove  it,  and,  as  weakly,  that  the  world 


6o6 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


was  eternal.  That  dispute  much  troubled  the  pen  of  the  philos¬ 
ophers,  but  Moses  decided  that  question,  and  all  is  salved  with 
the  new  term  of  a  creation,  that  is,  a  production  of  something 
out  of  nothing.  And  what  is  that  ?  Whatsoever  is  opposite  to 
something;  or,  more  exactly,  that  which  is  truly  contrary  unto 
God.  For  he  only  is,  all  others  have  an  existence  with  depend¬ 
ency,  and  are  something  but  by  a  distinction;  and  herein  is  di¬ 

vinity  conformant  unto  philosophy,  and  not  only  generation 
founded  on  contrarieties,  but  also  creation.  God  being  all  things, 
is  contrary  unto  nothing,  out  of  which  were  made  all  things; 
and  so  nothing  became  something,  and  omniety  informed  nullity 
into  an  essence. 

The  whole  creation  is  a  mystery,  and  particularly  that  of 
man.  At  the  blast  of  his  mouth  were  the  rest  of  the  creatures 

made,  and  at  his  bare  word  they  started  out  of  nothing;  but  in 

the  frame  of  man  (as  the  text  describes  it)  he  played  the  sensi¬ 
ble  operator,  and  seemed  not  so  much  to  create,  as  make  him. 
When  he  had  separated  the  materials  of  other  creatures,  there 
consequently  resulted  a  form  and  soul;  but  having  raised  the 
walls  of  man,  he  was  driven  to  a  second  and  harder  creation  of 
a  substance  like  himself,  an  incorruptible  and  immortal  soul. 
For  these  two  affections  we  have  the  philosophy  and  opinion 
of  the  heathen,  the  flat  affirmative  of  Plato,  and  not  a  negative 
from  Aristotle.  There  is  another  scruple  cast  in  by  divinity 
concerning  its  production  much  disputed  in  the  German  audi¬ 
tories,  and  with  that  indifferency  and  equality  of  arguments  as 
leave  the  controversy  undetermined.  I  am  not  of  Paracelsus’s 
mind,  that  boldly  delivers  a  receipt  to  make  a  man  without  con¬ 
junction;  yet  cannot  but  wonder  at  the  multitude  of  heads  that 
do  deny  traduction,  having  no  other  argument  to  confirm  their 
belief,  than  that  rhetorical  sentence,  and  antimetathesis  of  Augus¬ 
tine,  (<  Creando  infunditur ,  infundendo  creaturd *  Either  opinion 
will  consist  well  enough  with  religion;  yet  I  should  rather  in¬ 
cline  to  this,  did  not  one  objection  haunt  me,  not  wrung  from 
speculations  and  subtleties,  but  from  common  sense  and  observa¬ 
tion;  not  picked  from  the  leaves  of  any  author,  but  bred  amongst 
the  weeds  and  tares  of  mine  own  brain.  And  this  is  a  conclu¬ 
sion  from  the  equivocal  and  monstrous  productions  in  the  copu¬ 
lation  of  a  man  with  a  beast;  for  if  the  soul  of  man  be  not 
transmitted,  and  transfused  in  the  seed  of  the  parents,  why  are 
not  those  productions  merely  beasts,  but  have  also  an  impression 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  607 

and  tincture  of  reason  in  as  high  a  measure  as  it  can  evidence 
itself  in  those  improper  organs  ?  Nor  truly  can  I  peremptorily 
deny  that  the  soul  in  this,  her  sublunary  estate,  is  wholly  and  in 
all  acceptions  inorganical;  but  that,  for  the  performance  of  her 
ordinary  actions,  there  is  required  not  only  a  symmetry  and 
proper  disposition  of  organs,  but  a  crasis  and  temper  correspond¬ 
ent  to  its  operations.  Yet  is  not  this  mass  of  flesh  and  visible 
structure  the  instrument  and  proper  corps  of  the  soul,  but  rather 
of  sense,  and  that  the  hand  of  reason.  In  our  study  of  anatomy 
there  is  a  mass  of  mysterious  philosophy,  and  such  as  reduced 
the  very  heathen  to  divinity;  yet  amongst  all  those  rare  discov¬ 
eries  and  curious  pieces  I  find  in  the  fabric  of  man,  I  do  not  so 
much  content  myself  as  in  that  I  find  not  —  that  is,  no  organ  or 
instrument  for  the  rational  soul:  for  in  the  brain,  which  we  term 
the  seat  of  reason,  there  is  not  anything  of  moment  more  than  I 
can  discover  in  the  cranium  of  a  beast;  and  this  is  a  sensible 
and  no  inconsiderable  argument  of  the  inorganity  of  the  soul,  at 
least  in  that  sense  we  usually  so  conceive  it.  Thus  we  are  men, 
and  we  know  not  how;  there  is  something  in  us  that  can  be 
without  us,  and  will  be  after  us,  though  it  is  strange  that  it  hath 
no  history  what  it  was  before  us,  nor  cannot  tell  how  if  entered 
in  us. 

Now,  for  these  walls  of  flesh  wherein  the  soul  doth  seem  to 
be  immured  before  the  resurrection,  it  is  nothing  but  an  elemen¬ 
tal  composition,  and  a  fabric  that  must  fall  to  ashes.  (<  All  flesh 
is  grass, ®  is  not  only  metaphorically,  but  literally  true;  for  ail 
those  creatures  we  behold  are  but  the  herbs  of  the  field,  digested 
into  flesh  in  them,  or  more  remotely  carnified  in  ourselves.  Nay, 
further,  we  are  what  we  all  abhor,  anthropophagi  and  cannibals, 
devourers  not  only  of  men,  but  of  ourselves;  and  that  not  in  an 
allegory,  but  a  positive  truth:  for  all  this  mass  of  flesh  which  we 
behold  came  in  at  our  mouths;  this  frame  we  look  upon  hath 
been  upon  our  trenchers, —  in  brief,  we  have  devoured  ourselves. 
I  cannot  believe  the  wisdom  of  Pythagoras  did  ever  positively, 
and  in  a  literal  sense,  affirm  his  metempsychosis,  or  impossible 
transmigration  of  the  souls  of  men  into  beasts.  Of  all  the  meta¬ 
morphoses,  or  transmigrations,  I  believe  only  one,  that  is  of  Lot’s 
wife;  for  that  of  Nebuchadnezzar  proceeded  not  so  far;  in  all 
others  I  conceive  there  is  no  further  verity  that  is  contained  in 
their  implicit  sense  and  morality.  I  believe  that  the  whole  frame 
of  a  beast  doth  perish,  and  is  left  in  the  same  state  after  death 


6o8 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


as  before  it  was  materialled  unto  life;  that  the  souls  of  men 
know  neither  contrary  nor  corruption;  that  they  subsist  beyond 
the  body,  and  outlive  death  by  the  privilege  of  their  proper  na¬ 
tures,  and  without  a  miracle;  that  the  souls  of  the  faithful,  as 
they  leave  earth,  take  possession  of  heaven;  that  those  appari¬ 
tions  and  ghosts  of  departed  persons  are  not  the  wandering 
souls  of  men,  but  the  unquiet  walks  of  devils,  prompting  and 
suggesting  us  unto  mischief,  blood,  and  villainy,  instilling  and 
stealing  into  our  hearts;  that  the  blessed  spirits  are  not  at  rest 
in  their  graves,  but  wander  solicitous  of  the  affairs  of  the  world; 
but  that  those  phantasms  appear  often,  and  do  frequent  ceme¬ 
teries,  charnal  houses,  and  churches,  it  is  because  those  are  the 
dormitories  of  the  dead,  where  the  devil,  like  an  insolent  cham¬ 
pion,  beholds  with  pride  the  spoils  and  trophies  of  his  victory 
over  Adam. 

This  is  that  dismal  conquest  we  all  deplore,  that  makes  us  so 
often  cry,  O  Adam,  quid  fecisti  f  I  thank  God  I  have  not  those 
straight  ligaments  or  narrow  obligations  to  the  world  as  to  dote 
on  life,  or  be  convulsed  and  tremble  at  the  name  of  death.  Not 
that  I  am  insensible  of  the  dread  and  horror  thereof,  or  by  rak¬ 
ing  into  the  bowels  of  the  deceased,  continual  sight  of  anatomies, 
skeletons,  or  cadaverous  relics,  like  vespilloes,  or  grave  makers,  I 
am  become  stupid,  or  have  forgot  the  apprehension  of  mortality; 
but  that  marshaling  all  the  horrors,  and  contemplating  the  ex¬ 
tremities  thereof,  I  find  not  anything  therein  able  to  daunt  the 
courage  of  a  man,  much  less  a  well -resolved  Christian,  and 
therefore  am  not  angry  at  the  error  of  our  first  parents,  or  un¬ 
willing  to  bear  a  part  of  this  common  fate,  and  like  the  best  of 
them  to  die,  that  is,  to  cease  to  breathe,  to  take  a  farewell  of  the 
elements,  to  be  a  kind  of  nothing  for  a  moment,  to  be  within 
one  instant  of  a  spirit.  When  I  take  a  full  view  and  circle  of 
myself,  without  this  reasonable  moderator  and  equal  piece  of  jus¬ 
tice,  death,  I  do  conceive  myself  the  miserablest  person  extant. 
Were  there  not  another  life  that  I  hope  for,  all  the  vanities  of 
this  world  should  not  entreat  a  moment’s  breath  for  me;  could 
the  devil  work  my  belief  to  imagine  I  could  never  die,  I  would 
not  outlive  that  very  thought;  I  have  so  abject  a  conceit  of  this 
common  way  of  existence,  this  retaining  to  the  sun  and  ele¬ 
ments,  I  cannot  think  this  is  to  be  a  man,  or  to  live  according  to 
the  dignity  of  humanity.  In  expectation  of  a  better,  I  can  with 
patience  embrace  this  life,  yet  in  my  best  meditations  do  often 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


609 


desire  death.  I  honor  any  man  that  contemns  it,  nor  can  I  highly 
love  any  that  is  afraid  of  it.  This  makes  me  naturally  love  a 
soldier,  and  honor  those  tattered  and  contemptible  regiments  that 
will  die  at  the  command  of  a  sergeant.  For  a  pagan  there  may 
be  some  motives  to  be  in  love  with  life;  but  for  a  Christian  to 
be  amazed  at  death,  I  see  not  how  he  can  escape  this  dilemma, 
that  he  is  too  sensible  of  this  life  or  hopeless  of  the  life  to  come. 

Some  divines  count  Adam  thirty  years  old  at  his  creation,  be¬ 
cause  they  suppose  him  created  in  the  perfect  age  and  stature  of 
man.  And  surely  we  are  all  out  of  the  computation  of  our  age, 
and  every  man  is  some  months  elder  than  he  bethinks  him;  for 
we  live,  move,  have  a  being,  and  are  subject  to  the  actions  of  the 
elements,  and  the  malice  of  diseases,  in  that  other  world,  the 
truest  microcosm,  the  womb  of  our  mother.  For  besides  that 
general  and  common  existence  we  are  conceived  to  hold  in  our 
chaos,  and  whilst  we  sleep  within  the  bosom  of  our  causes,  we 
enjoy  a  being  and  life  in  three  distinct  worlds,  wherein  we  re¬ 
ceive  most  manifest  graduations.  In  that  obscure  world  and 
womb  of  our  mother,  our  time  is  short,  computed  by  the  moon; 
yet  longer  than  the  days  of  many  creatures  that  behold  the  sun, 
ourselves  being  not  yet  without  life,  sense,  and  reason,  though 
for  the  manifestation  of  its  actions  it  awaits  the  opportunity  of 
objects,  and  seems  to  live  there  but  in  its  root  and  soul  of  vege¬ 
tation.  Entering  afterwards  upon  the  scene  of  the  world,  we 
rise  up  and  become  another  creature,  performing  the  reasonable 
actions  of  man,  and  obscurely  manifesting  that  part  of  divinity  in 
us,  but  not  in  complement  and  perfection  till  we  have  once  more 
cast  our  secondine,  that  is,  this  slough  of  flesh,  and  are  delivered 
into  the  last  world,  that  is,  that  ineffable  place  of  Paul,  that 
proper  ubi  of  spirits.  The  smattering  I  have  of  the  philosopher’s 
stone  (which  is  something  more  than  the  perfect  exaltation  of 
gold)  hath  taught  me  a  great  deal  of  divinity,  and  instructed  my 
belief,  how  that  immortal  spirit,  and  incorruptible  substance  of 
my  soul  may  lie  obscure,  and  sleep  awhile  within  this  house  of 
flesh.  Those  strange  and  mystical  transmigrations  that  I  have 
observed  in  silkworms  turned  my  philosophy  into  divinity.  There 
is  in  these  works  of  nature,  which  seem  to  puzzle  reason,  some¬ 
thing  divine,  and  hath  more  in  it  than  the  eye  of  a  common 
spectator  doth  discover. 

I  am  naturally  bashful,  nor  hath  conversation,  age,  or  travel 
been  able  to  effront  or  enharden  me;  yet  I  have  one  part  of 
n— 39 


6io 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


modesty  which  I  have  seldom  discovered  in  another,  that  is  (to 
speak  truly),  I  am  not  so  much  afraid  of  death  as  ashamed 
thereof.  It  is  the  very  disgrace  and  ignominy  of  our  natures 
that  in  a  moment  can  so  disfigure  us  that  our  nearest  friends, 
wife,  and  children  stand  afraid  and  start  at  us.  The  birds  and 
beasts  of  the  field,  that  before  in  a  natural  fear  obeyed  us,  for¬ 
getting  all  allegiance,  begin  to  prey  upon  us.  This  very  conceit 
hath  in  a  tempest  disposed  and  left  me  willing  to  be  swallowed 
up  in  the  abyss  of  waters;  wherein  I  had  perished  unseen,  un¬ 
pitied,  without  wondering  eyes,  tears  of  pity,  lectures  of  mor¬ 
tality,  and  none  had  said,  <(  Quantum  mutatus  ab  illo  ! })  Not  that 
I  am  ashamed  of  the  anatomy  of  my  parts,  or  can  accuse  nature 
for  playing  the  bungler  in  any  part  of  me,  or  my  own  vicious 
life  for  contracting  any  shameful  disease  upon  me,  whereby  I 
might  not  call  myself  as  wholesome  a  morsel  for  the  worms  as 
any. 

Some,  upon  the  courage  of  a  fruitful  issue,  wherein,  as  in  the 
truest  chronicle,  they  seem  to  outlive  themselves,  can  with  greater 
patience  away  with  death.  This  conceit  and  counterfeit  subsist¬ 
ing  in  our  progenies  seems  to  me  a  mere  fallacy,  unworthy  the 
desires  of  a  man  that  can  but  conceive  a  thought  of  the  next 
world;  who,  in  a  nobler  ambition,  should  desire  to  live  in  his 
substance  in  heaven,  rather  than  his  name  and  shadow  in  the 
earth.  And  therefore  at  my  death  I  mean  to  take  a  total  adieu 
of  the  world,  not  caring  for  a  monument,  history,  or  epitaph,  not 
so  much  as  the  memory  of  my  name  to  be  found  anywhere,  but 
in  the  universal  register  of  God.  I  am  not  yet  so  cynical  as  to 
approve  the  testament  of  Diogenes,  nor  do  I  altogether  allow 
that  rhodomontade  of  Lucan :  — 

<( - Coelo  tegitur ,  qui  non  habet  urnam .)y 

(<  He  that  unburied  lies  wants  not  his  hearse, 

For  unto  him  a  tomb’s  the  universe ; }) 

but  commend,  in  my  calmer  judgment,  those  ingenuous  inten¬ 
tions  that  desire  to  sleep  by  the  urns  of  their  fathers  and  strive 
to  go  the  nearest  way  unto  corruption.  I  do  not  envy  the  tem¬ 
per  of  crows  and  daws,  nor  the  numerous  and  weary  days  of  our 
fathers  before  the  flood.  If  there  be  any  truth  in  astrology,  I 
may  outlive  a  jubilee.  As  yet  I  have  not  seen  one  revolution  of 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


61 1 

Saturn,  nor  hath  my  pulse  beat  thirty  years;  and  yet,  excepting 
one,  have  seen  the  ashes  of  and  left  underground  all  the  kings 
of  Europe ;  have  been  contemporary  to  three  emperors,  four 
grand  signors,  and  as  many  popes.  Methinks  I  have  outlived 
myself,  and  begin  to  be  weary  of  the  sun;  I  have  shaken  hands 
with  delight.  In  my  warm  blood  and  canicular  days  I  perceive 
I  do  anticipate  the  vices  of  age;  the  world  to  me  is  but  a  dream 
or  mock  show,  and  we  all  therein  but  pantaloons  and  antics,  to 
my  severe  contemplations. 

It  is  not,  I  confess,  an  unlawful  prayer  to  desire  to  surpass 
the  days  of  our  Savior,  or  wish  to  outlive  that  age  wherein  he 
thought  fittest  to  die;  yet  if  (as  divinity  affirms)  there  shall  be 
no  gray  hairs  in  heaven,  but  all  shall  rise  in  the  perfect  state  of 
men,  we  do  but  outlive  those  perfections  in  this  world,  to  be  re- 
•  called  unto  them  by  a  greater  miracle  in  the  next,  and  run  on 
here  but  to  be  retrograde  hereafter.  Were  there  any  hopes  to 
outlive  vice,  or  a  point  to  be  superannuated  from  sin,  it  were 
worthy  our  knees  to  implore  the  days  of  Methuselah.  But  age 
doth  not  rectify,  but  incurvate  our  natures,  turning  bad  disposi¬ 
tions  into  worser  habits,  and,  like  diseases,  bringing  on  incurable 
vices;  for  every  day  as  we  grow  weaker  in  age  we  grow  stronger 
in  sin;  and  the  number  of  our  days  doth  but  make  our  sins  in¬ 
numerable.  The  same  vice  committed  at  sixteen  is  not  the 
same,  though  it  agree  in  all  other  circumstances,  as  at  forty, 
but  swells  and  doubles  from  that  circumstance  of  our  ages, 
wherein,  besides  the  constant  and  inexcusable  habit  of  transgress¬ 
ing,  the  maturity  of  our  judgment  cuts  off  pretense  unto  ex¬ 
cuse  or  pardon.  Every  sin  the  oftener  it  is  committed,  the  more 
it  acquireth  in  the  quality  of  evil.  As  it  succeeds  in  time,  so  it 
proceeds  in  degrees  of  badness;  for  as  they  proceed  they  ever 
multiply,  and,  like  figures  in  arithmetic,  the  last  stands  for  more 
than  all  that  went  before  it.  And  though  I  think  no  man  can 
live  well  once,  but  he  that  could  live  twice,  yet  for  my  own  part 
I  would  not  live  over  my  hours  past,  or  begin  again  the  thread 
of  my  days;  not  upon  Cicero’s  ground,  because  I  have  lived  them 
well,  but  for  fear  I  should  live  them  worse.  I  find  my  growing 
judgment  daily  instructs  me  how  to  be  better,  but  my  untamed 
affections  and  confirmed  vitiosity  makes  me  daily  do  worse.  I 
find  in  my  confirmed  age  the  same  sins  I  discovered  in  my 
youth;  I  committed  many  then  because  I  was  a  child,  and 
because  I  commit  them  still  I  am  yet  an  infant.  Therefore  I 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


612 

perceive  a  man  may  be  twice  a  child  before  the  days  of  dotage, 
and  stand  in  need  of  JEson’s  bath  before  threescore. 

And  truly  there  goes  a  great  deal  of  providence  to  produce  a 
man’s  life  unto  threescore;  there  is  more  required  than  an  able 
temper  for  those  years;  though  the  radical  humor  contain  in  it 
sufficient  oil  for  seventy,  yet  I  perceive  in  some  it  gives  no  light 
past  thirty:  men  assign  not  all  the  causes  of  long  life,  that  write 
whole  books  thereof.  They  that  found  themselves  on  the  radical 
balsam,  or  vital  sulphur  of  the  parts,  determine  not  why  Abel 
lived  not  so  long  as  Adam.  There  is  therefore  a  secret  glome 
or  bottom  of  our  days;  it  was  his  wisdom  to  determine  them, 
but  his  perpetual  and  waking  providence  that  fulfills  and  accom¬ 
plishes  them;  wherein  the  spirits,  ourselves,  and  all  the  creatures 
of  God  in  a  secret  and  disputed  way  do  execute  his  will.  Let 
them  not,  therefore,  complain  of  immaturity  that  die  about  thirty: 
they  fall  but  like  the  whole  world,  whose  solid  and  well-composed 
substance  must  not  expect  the  duration  and  period  of  its  consti¬ 
tution.  When  all  things  are  completed  in  it,  its  age  is  accom¬ 
plished;  and  the  last  and  general  fever  may  as  naturally  destroy 
it  before  six  thousand,  as  me  before  forty.  There  is  therefore 
some  other  hand  that  twines  the  thread  of  life  than  that  of  na¬ 
ture.  We  are  not  only  ignorant  in  antipathies  and  occult  qualities; 
our  ends  are  as  obscure  as  our  beginnings;  the  line  of  our  days 
is  drawn  by  night,  and  the  various  effects  therein  by  a  pencil 
that  is  invisible;  wherein,  though  we  confess  our  ignorance,  I  am 
sure  we  do  not  err  if  we  say  it  is  the  hand  of  God. 

I  am  much  taken  with  two  verses  of  Lucan,  since  I  have 
been  able,  not  only  as  we  do  at  school,  to  construe,  but  under¬ 
stand. 

<(  Victurosque  Dei  celant  ut  vivere  durent 
Felix  esse  moriF 

(<  We’re  all  deluded,  vainly  searching  ways 
To  make  us  happy  by  the  length  of  days; 

For  cunningly  to  make ’s  protract  this  breath 
The  gods  conceal  the  happiness  of  death. 

There  be  many  excellent  strains  in  that  poet,  wherewith  his  sto¬ 
ical  genius  hath  liberally  supplied  him;  and  truly  there  are  singu¬ 
lar  pieces  in  the  philosophy  of  Zeno,  and  doctrine  of  the  stoics, 
which  I  perceive,  delivered  in  a  pulpit,  pass  for  current  divinity. 
Yet  herein  are  they  in  extremes,  that  can  allow  a  man  to  be  his 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


613 


own  assassin,  and  so  highly  extol  the  end  and  suicide  of  Cato; 
this  is  indeed  not  to  fear  death,  but  yet  to  be  afraid  of  life.  It 
is  a  brave  act  of  valor  to  contemn  death;  but  where  life  is  more 
terrible  than  death,  it  is  then  the  truest  valor  to  dare  to  live; 
and  herein  religion  hath  taught  us  a  noble  example.  For  all  the 
valiant  acts  of  Curtius,  Scsevola,  or  Codrus,  do  not  parallel  or 
match  that  one  of  Job;  and  sure  there  is  no  torture  to  the  rack 
of  disease,  nor  any  poniards  in  death  itself,  like  those  in  the  way 
or  prologue  to  it.  <(  Emori  nolo ,  sed  me  esse  mortuum  nihil  euro;  )y 
I  would  not  die,  but  care  not  to  be  dead.  Were  I  of  Caesar’s 
religion,  I  should  be  of  his  desires,  and  wish  rather  to  go  off  at 
one  blow  than  to  be  sawn  in  pieces  by  the  grating  torture  of  a 
disease.  Men  that  look  no  further  than  their  outsides  think 
health  an  appurtenance  unto  life,  and  quarrel  with  their  constitu¬ 
tions  for  being  sick;  but  I  that  have  examined  the  parts  of  man, 
and  know  upon  what  tender  filaments  that  fabric  hangs,  do  won¬ 
der  that  we  are  not  always  so;  and  considering  the  thousand  doors 
that  lead  to  death,  do  thank  my  God  that  we  can  die  but  once. 
It  is  not  only  the  mischief  of  diseases,  and  villainy  of  poisons, 
that  make  an  end  of  us:  we  vainly  accuse  the  fury  of  guns  and 
the  new  inventions  of  death:  it  is  in  the  power  of  every  hand  to 
destroy  us,  and  we  are  beholden  unto  every  one  we  meet  that  he 
doth  not  kill  us.  There  is,  therefore,  but  one  comfort  left,  that, 
though  it  be  in  the  power  of  the  weakest  arm  to  take  away  life, 
it  is  not  in  the  strongest  to  deprive  us  of  death.  God  would  not 
exempt  himself  from  that,  the  misery  of  immortality  in  the  flesh; 
he  undertook  not  that  was  immortal.  Certainly  there  is  no  hap¬ 
piness  within  this  circle  of  flesh,  nor  is  it  in  the  optics  of  these 
eyes  to  behold  felicity.  The  first  day  of  our  jubilee  is  death.  The 
devil  hath  therefore  failed  of  his  desires;  we  are  happier  with 
death  than  we  should  have  been  without  it.  There  is  no  misery 
but  in  himself,  where  there  is  no  end  of  misery;  and  so  indeed, 
in  his  own  sense,  the  stoic  is  in  the  right.  He  forgets  that  he 
can  die  who  complains  of  misery;  we  are  in  the  power  of  no 
calamity  while  death  is  in  our  own. 

Now,  besides  the  literal  and  positive  kind  of  death,  there  are 
others  whereof  divines  make  mention,  and  those,  I  think  not 
merely  metaphorical,  as  mortification,  dying  unto  sin  and  the 
world.  Therefore,  I  say,  every  man  hath  a  double  horoscope,  one 
of  his  humanity,  his  birth;  another  of  his  Christianity,  his  bap¬ 
tism,  and  from  this  do  I  compute  or  calculate  my  nativity, — not 


614 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


reckoning  those  horcz  combustce  and  odd  days,  or  esteeming  my¬ 
self  anything,  before  I  was  my  Savior’s,  and  enrolled  in  the  reg¬ 
ister  of  Christ.  Whosoever  enjoys  not  this  life,  I  count  him  but 
an  apparition,  though  he  wear  about  him  the  sensible  affections 
of  flesh.  In  these  moral  acceptions,  the  way  to  be  immortal  is 
to  die  daily;  nor  can  I  think  I  have  the  true  theory  of  death, 
when  I  contemplate  a  skull,  or  behold  a  skeleton  with  those  vul¬ 
gar  imaginations  it  casts  upon  us.  I  have,  therefore,  enlarged 
that  common  memento  mori ,  into  a  more  Christian  memorandum, 
memento  qnatnor  novissima ,  those  four  inevitable  points  of  us  all, 
death,  judgment,  heaven,  and  hell.  Neither  did  the  contempla¬ 
tions  of  the  heathen  rest  in  their  graves,  without  further  thought 
of  Rhadamanthus,  or  some  judicial  proceeding  after  death,  though 
in  another  way,  and  upon  suggestion  of  their  natural  reasons.  I 
cannot  but  marvel  from  what  sibyl  or  oracle  they  stole  the 
prophecy  of  the  world’s  destruction  by  fire,  or  whence  Lucan 
learned  to  say, — 

<(  Communis  mundo  sufierest  rogus ,  ossibus  astra 
Misturus . ” 

<(  There  yet  remains  to  th’  world  one  common  fire, 

Wherein  our  bones  with  stars  shall  make  one  pyre.” 

I  believe  the  world  grows  near  its  end,  yet  is  neither  old  nor 
decayed,  nor  shall  ever  perish  upon  the  ruins  of  its  own  princi¬ 
ples.  As  the  work  of  creation  was  above  nature,  so  its  adver¬ 
sary  annihilation,  without  which  the  world  hath  not  its  end,  but 
its  mutation.  Now,  what  force  should  be  able  to  consume  it 
thus  far,  without  the  breath  of  God,  which  is  the  truest  consum¬ 
ing  flame,  my  philosophy  cannot  inform  me.  Some  believe  there 
went  not  a  minute  to  the  world’s  creation,  nor  shall  there  go  to 
its  destruction:  those  six  days  so  punctually  described  make  not 
to  them  one  moment,  but  lather  seem  to  manifest  the  method 
and  idea  of  the  great  work  of  the  intellect  of  God  than  the 
manner  how  he  proceeded  in  its  operation.  I  cannot  dream  that 
there  should  be  at  the  last  day  any  such  judicial  proceeding,  or 
calling  to  the  bar,  as  indeed  the  Scripture  seems  to  imply,  and 
the  literal  commentators  do  conceive.  For  unspeakable  mysteries 
in  the  Scriptures  are  often  delivered  in  a  vulgar  and  illustrative 
way,  and  being  written  unto  man,  are  delivered,  not  as  they 
truly  are,  but  as  they  may  be  understood;  wherein,  notwithstand- 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


615 

ing  the  different  interpretations,  according  to  different  capacities, 
may  stand  firm  with  our  devotion,  nor  be  any  way  prejudicial  to 
each  single  edification. 

Now,  to  determine  the  day  and  the  year  of  this  inevitable 
time  is  not  only  convincible  and  statute  madness,  but  also  mani¬ 
fest  impiety.  How  shall  we  interpret  Elias’s  six  thousand  years, 
or  imagine  the  secret  communicated  to  a  rabbi,  which  God  hath 
denied  unto  his  angels  ?  It  had  been  an  excellent  query  to  have 
posed  the  devil  of  Delphi,  and  must  needs  have  forced  him  to 
some  strange  amphibology;  it  hath  not  only  mocked  the  predic¬ 
tions  of  sundry  astrologers  in  ages  past,  but  the  prophecies  of 
many  melancholy  heads  in  these  present,  who,  neither  understand¬ 
ing  reasonably  things  past  or  present,  pretend  a  knowledge  of 
things  to  come;  heads  ordained  only  to  manifest  the  incredible 
effects  of  melancholy,  and  to  fulfill  old  prophecies  rather  than  be 
the  authors  of  new.  <(  In  those  days  there  shall  come  wars  and 
rumors  of  wars,^  to  me  seems  no  prophecy,  but  a  constant  truth, 
in  all  times  verified  since  it  was  pronounced.  <(  There  shall  be 
signs  in  the  moon  and  stars  ®;  how  comes  he  then  like  a  thief 
in  the  night,  when  he  gives  an  item  of  his  coming  ?  That  com¬ 
mon  sign  drawn  from  the  revelation  of  Antichrist  is  as  obscure 
as  any.  In  our  common  compute  he  hath  been  come  these  many 
years;  but  for  my  own  part,  to  speak  freely,  I  am  half  of  opin¬ 
ion  that  Antichrist  is  the  philosopher’s  stone  in  divinity, —  for  the 
discovery  and  invention  thereof,  though  there  be  prescribed  rules 
and  probable  inductions,  yet  hath  hardly  any  man  attained  the 
perfect  discovery  thereof.  That  general  opinion  that  the  world 
grows  near  its  end  hath  possessed  all  ages  past  as  nearly  as 
ours;  I  am  afraid  that  the  souls  that  now  depart  cannot  escape 
that  lingering  expostulation  of  the  saints  under  the  altar,  <(  Quous- 
que  Domine  ? *  (How  long,  O  Lord  ?)  and  groan  in  the  expecta¬ 
tion  of  that  great  jubilee. 

This  is  the  day  that  must  make  good  that  great  attribute  of 
God,  his  justice;  that  must  reconcile  those  unanswerable  doubts 
that  torment  the  wisest  understandings,  and  reduce  those  seem¬ 
ing  inequalities,  and  respective  distributions  in  this  world,  to  an 
equality  and  recompensive  justice  in  the  next.  This  is  that  one 
day  that  shall  include  and  comprehend  all  that  went  before  it; 
wherein,  as  in  the  last  scene,  all  the  actors  must  enter,  to  com¬ 
plete  and  make  up  the  catastrophe  of  this  great  piece.  This  is 
the  day  whose  memory  hath  only  power  to  make  us  honest  in 


6i  6 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


the  dark,  and  to  be  virtuous  without  a  witness.  (<  Ipsa  sui pretium 
virtus  sibi , that  <(  virtue  is  her  own  reward, })  is  but  a  cold  principle, 
and  not  able  to  maintain  our  variable  resolutions  in  a  constant 
and  settled  way  of  goodness.  I  have  practiced  that  honest  arti¬ 
fice  of  Seneca,  and  in  my  retired  and  solitary  imaginations,  to 
detain  me  from  the  foulness  of  vice,  have  fancied  to  myself  the 
presence  of  my  dear  and  worthiest  friends,  before  whom  I  would 
lose  my  head  rather  than  be  vicious;  yet  herein  I  found  that 
there  was  naught  but  moral  honesty,  and  this  was  not  to  be  vir¬ 
tuous  for  his  sake,  who  must  reward  us  at  the  last.  I  have  tried 
if  I  could  reach  that  great  resolution  of  his,  to  be  honest  with¬ 
out  a  thought  of  heaven  or  hell;  and  indeed  I  found,  upon  a  nat¬ 
ural  inclination,  and  inbred  loyalty  unto  virtue,  that  I  could  serve 
her  without  a  livery;  yet  not  in  that  resolved  and  venerable 
way,  but  that  the  frailty  of  my  nature,  upon  easy  temptation, 
might  be  induced  to  forget  her.  The  life,  therefore,  and  spirit 
of  all  our  actions  is  the  resurrection,  and  a  stable  apprehension 
that  our  ashes  shall  enjoy  the  fruit  of  our  pious  endeavors;  with¬ 
out  this,  all  religion  is  a  fallacy,  and  those  impieties  of  Lucian, 
Euripides,  and  Julian  are  no  blasphemies,  but  subtle  verities,  and 
atheists  have  been  the  only  philosophers. 

How  shall  the  dead  arise  is  no  question  of  my  faith;  to  be¬ 
lieve  only  possibilities  is  not  faith,  but  mere  philosophy.  Many 
things  are  true  in  divinity  which  are  neither  inducible  by  reason, 
nor  confirmable  by  sense;  and  many  things  in  philosophy  con¬ 
firmable  by  sense,  yet  not  inducible  by  reason.  Thus  it  is  im¬ 
possible,  by  any  solid  or  demonstrative  reasons,  to  persuade  a 
man  to  believe  the  conversion  of  the  needle  to  the  north,  though 
this  be  possible  and  true,  and  easily  credible  upon  a  single  ex¬ 
periment  unto  the  sense.  I  believe  that  our  estranged  and  divided 
ashes  shall  unite  again;  that  our  separated  dust,  after  so  many 
pilgrimages  and  transformations  into  the  parts  of  minerals,  plants, 
animals,  elements,  shall  at  the  voice  of  God  return  into  their 
primitive  shapes,  and  join  again  to  make  up  their  primary  and 
predestinate  forms.  As,  at  the  creation,  there  was  a  separation 
of  that  confused  mass  into  its  species,  so  at  the  destruction 
thereof  there  shall  be  a  separation  into  its  distinct  individuals. 
As,  at  the  creation  of  the  world,  all  the  distinct  species  that 
we  behold  lay  involved  in  one  mass,  till  the  fruitful  voice  of 
God  separated  this  united  multitude  into  its  several  species, 
so  at  the  last  day,  when  those  corrupted  relics  shall  be  scat- 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


617 


tered  in  the  wilderness  of  forms,  and  seem  to  have  forgot  their 
proper  habits,  God,  by  a  powerful  voice,  shall  command  them 
back  into  their  proper  shapes  and  call  them  out  by  their  single 
individuals;  then  shall  appear  the  fertility  of  Adam,  and  the 
magic  of  that  sperm  that  hath  dilated  into  so  many  millions.  I 
have  often  beheld  as  a  miracle  that  artificial  resurrection  and 
revivification  of  mercury,  how  being  mortified  into  a  thousand 
shapes,  it  assumes  again  its  own  and  returns  into  its  numerical 
self.  Let  us  speak  naturally,  and  like  philosophers,  the  forms  of 
alterable  bodies  in  these  sensible  corruptions  perish  not;  nor,  as 
we  imagine,  wholly  quit  their  mansions,  but  retire  and  contract 
themselves  into  their  secret  and  inaccessible  parts,  where  they 
may  best  protect  themselves  from  the  action  of  their  antagonist. 
A  plant  or  vegetable  consumed  to  ashes,  by  a  contemplative  and 
school  philosopher  seems  utterly  destroyed,  and  the  form  to  have 
taken  his  leave  forever;  but  to  a  sensible  artist  the  forms  are 
not  perished,  but  withdrawn  into  their  incombustible  part,  where 
they  lie  secure  from  the  action  of  that  devouring  element.  This 
is  made  good  by  experience,  which  can  from  the  ashes  of  a  plant 
revive  the  plant,  and  from  its  cinders  recall  it  into  its  stalk  and 
leaves  again.  What  the  art  of  man  can  do  in  these  inferior 
pieces,  what  blasphemy  is  it  to  affirm  the  finger  of  God  cannot 
do  in  those  more  perfect  and  sensible  structures  !  This  is  that 
mystical  philosophy  from  whence  no  true  scholar  becomes  an 
atheist,  but  from  the  visible  effects  of  nature  grows  up  a  real 
divine,  and  beholds,  not  in  a  dream,  as  Ezekiel,  but  in  an  ocular 
and  visible  object,  the  types  of  his  resurrection. 

Now,  the  necessary  mansions  of  our  restored  selves  are  those 
two  contrary  and  incompatible  places  we  call  heaven  and  hell;  to 
define  them,  or  strictly  to  determine  what  and  where  these  are 
surpasseth  my  divinity.  That  elegant  Apostle  which  seemed  to 
have  a  glimpse  of  heaven  hath  left  but  a  negative  description 
thereof,  <(  Which  neither  eye  hath  seen,  nor  ear  hath  heard,  nor 
can  enter  into  the  heart  of  man  }> ;  he  was  translated  out  of  him¬ 
self  to  behold  it,  but  being  returned  into  himself  could  not  ex¬ 
press  it.  Saint  John’s  description  by  emeralds,  chrysolites,  and 
precious  stones  is  too  weak  to  express  the  material  heaven  we 
behold.  Briefly,  therefore,  where  the  soul  hath  the  full  measure 
and  complement  of  happiness,  where  the  boundless  appetite  of 
that  spirit  remains  completely  satisfied  that  it  can  neither  desire 
addition  nor  alteration,  that  I  think  is  truly  heaven;  and  this  can 


6i8 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


only  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  that  essence  whose  infinite  goodness 
is  able  to  terminate  the  desires  of  itself,  and  the  insatiable  wishes 
of  ours.  Wherever  God  will  thus  manifest  himself,  there  is  heaven, 
though  within  the  circle  of  this  sensible  world.  Thus  the  soul 
of  man  may  be  in  heaven  anywhere,  even  within  the  limits  of 
his  own  proper  body;  and  when  it  cease th  to  live  in  the  body  it 
may  remain  in  its  own  soul,  that  is,  its  Creator.  And  thus  we 
may  say  that  Saint  Paul,  whether  in  the  body,  or  out  of  the  body, 
was  yet  in  heaven.  To  place  it  in  the  empyreal,  or  beyond  the 
tenth  sphere,  is  to  forget  the  world’s  destruction.  For  when  this 
sensible  world  shall  be  destroyed,  all  shall  then  be  here  as  it  is 
now  there,  an  empyreal  heaven,  a  qitasi  vacuity;  when  to  ask 
where  heaven  is  is  to  demand  where  the  presence  of  God  is,  or 
where  we  have  the  glory  of  that  happy  vision.  Moses,  that  was 
bred  up  in  all  the  learning  of  the  Egyptians,  committed  a  gross 
absurdity  in  philosophy  when  with  these  eyes  of  flesh  he  desired 
to  see  God,  and  petitioned  his  Maker,  that  is  truth  itself,  to  a 
contradiction.  Those  that  imagine  heaven  and  hell  neighbors, 
and  conceive  a  vicinity  between  those  two  extremes,  upon  conse¬ 
quence  of  the  parable  where  Dives  discoursed  with  Lazarus  in 
Abraham’s  bosom,  do  too  grossly  conceive  of  those  glorified  crea¬ 
tures,  whose  eyes  shall  easily  outsee  the  sun,  and  behold  without 
a  perspective  the  extremest  distances;  for  if  there  shall  be  in 
our  glorified  eyes  the  faculty  of  sight  and  reception  of  objects,  I 
could  think  the  visible  species  there  to  be  in  as  unlimitable  a 
way  as  now  the  intellectual.  I  grant  that  two  bodies  placed  be¬ 
yond  the  tenth  sphere,  or  in  a  vacuity,  according  to  Aristotle's 
philosophy,  could  not  behold  each  other,  because  there  wants  a 
body  or  medium  to  hand  and  transport  the  visible  rays  of  the 
object  unto  the  sense;  but  when  there  shall  be  a  general  defect 
of  either  medium  to  convey,  or  light  to  prepare  and  dispose  that 
medium,  and  yet  a  perfect  vision,  we  must  suspend  the  rules  of 
our  philosophy,  and  make  all  good  by  a  more  absolute  piece  of 
optics. 

I  cannot  tell  how  to  say  that  fire  is  the  essence  of  hell.  I 
know  not  what  to  make  of  purgatory,  or  conceive  a  flame  that 
can  either  prey  upon,  or  purify  the  substance  of  a  soul;  those 
flames  of  sulphur  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures,  I  take  not  to  be 
understood  of  this  present  hell,  but  of  that  to  come,  where  fire 
shall  make  up  the  complement  of  our  tortures,  and  have  a  body 
or  subject  wherein  to  manifest  its  tyranny.  Some  who  have  had 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


619 


the  honor  to  be  textuary  in  divinity  are  of  opinion  it  shall  be 
the  same  specifical  fire  with  ours.  This  is  hard  to  conceive,  yet 
can  I  make  good  how  even  that  may  prey  upon  our  bodies,  and 
yet  not  consume  us;  for  in  this  material  world,  there  are  bodies 
that  persist  invincible  in  the  powerfullest  flames,  and  though  by 
the  action  of  fire  they  fall  into  ignition  and  liquation,  yet  will 
they  never  suffer  a  destruction.  I  would  gladly  know  how  Moses, 
With  an  actual  fire,  calcined  or  burnt  the  golden  calf  into  pow¬ 
der;  for  that  mystical  metal  of  gold,  whose  solary  and  celestial 
nature  I  admire,  exposed  unto  the  violence  of  fire,  grows  only 
hot  and  liquefies,  but  consumeth  not.  So  when  the  consumable 
and  volatile  pieces  of  our  bodies  shall  be  refined  into  a  more  im¬ 
pregnable  and  fixed  temper,  like  gold,  though  they  suffer  from 
the  actions  of  flames,  they  shall  never  perish,  but  lie  immortal  in 
the  arms  of  fire.  And  surely  if  this  frame  must  suffer  only 
by  the  action  of  this  element,  there  will  many  bodies  escape,  and 
not  only  heaven  but  earth  will  not  be  at  an  end,  but  rather  a  be¬ 
ginning.  For  at  present  it  is  not  earth,  but  a  composition  of  fire, 
water,  earth,  and  air;  but  at  that  time,  spoiled  of  these  ingredi¬ 
ents,  it  shall  appear  in  a  substance  more  like  itself,  its  ashes. 
Philosophers  that  opinioned  the  world’s  destruction  by  fire  did 
never  dream  of  annihilation,  which  is  beyond  the  power  of  sub¬ 
lunary  causes;  for  the  last  action  of  that  element  is  but  vitrifica¬ 
tion,  or  a  reduction  of  a  body  into  glass;  and  therefore  some  of 
our  chemists  facetiously  affirm  that  at  the  last  fire  all  shall  be 
crystallized  and  reverberated  into  glass,  which  is  the  utmost  ac¬ 
tion  of  that  element.  Nor  need  we  fear  this  term,  annihilation, 
or  wonder  that  God  will  destroy  the  works  of  his  creation;  for 

man  subsisting,  who  is,  and  will  then  truly  appear  a  microcosm, 

the  world  cannot  be  said  to  be  destroyed.  For  the  eyes  of  God, 

and  perhaps  also  of  our  glorified  selves,  shall  as  really  behold 

and  contemplate  the  world  in  its  epitome  or  contracted  essence 
as  now  it  doth  at  large  and  in  its  dilated  substance.  In  the 
seed  of  a  plant,  to  the  eyes  of  God,  and  to  the  understanding  of 
man,  there  exists,  though  in  an  invisible  way,  the  perfect  leaves, 
flowers,  and  fruit  thereof  (for  things  that  are  in  posse  to  the 
sense  are  actually  existent  to  the  understanding).  Thus  God  be¬ 
holds  all  things,  who  contemplates  as  fully  his  works  in  their 
epitome  as  in  their  full  volume,  and  beheld  as  amply  the  whole 
world  in  that  little  compendium  of  the  sixth  day,  as  in  the  scat¬ 
tered  and  dilated  pieces  of  those  five  before. 


620 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


Men  commonly  set  forth  the  torments  of  hell  by  fire,  and  the 
extremity  of  corporeal  afflictions,  and  describe  hell  in  the  same 
method  that  Mahomet  doth  heaven.  This  indeed  makes  a  noise, 
and  drums  in  popular  ears;  but  if  this  be  the  terrible  piece  thereof, 
it  is  not  worthy  to  stand  in  diameter  with  heaven,  whose  happi¬ 
ness  consists  in  that  part  that  is  best  able  to  comprehend  it,  that 
immortal  essence,  that  translated  divinity  and  colony  of  God,  the 
soul.  Surely,  though  we  place  hell  under  earth,  the  devil’s  walk 
and  purlieu  is  about  it;  men  speak  too  popularly  who  place  it  in 
those  flaming  mountains,  which  to  grosser  apprehensions  repre¬ 
sent  hell.  The  heart  of  man  is  the  place  the  devils  dwell  in.  I 
feel  sometimes  a  hell  within  myself;  Lucifer  keeps  his  court  in 
my  breast;  Legion  is  revived  in  me.  There  are  as  many  hells 
as  Anaxagoras  conceited  worlds.  There  was  more  than  one  hell 
in  Magdalene,  when  there  were  seven  devils;  for  every  devil  is 
a  hell  unto  himself.  He  holds  enough  of  torture  in  his  own  ubi , 
and  needs  not  the  misery  of  circumference  to  afflict  him.  And 
thus  a  distracted  conscience  here  is  a  shadow  or  introduction 
unto  hell  hereafter.  Who  can  but  pity  the  merciful  intention  of 
those  hands  that  do  destroy  themselves  ?  The  devil,  were  it  in 
his  power,  would  do  the  like ;  which  being  impossible,  his  miseries 
are  endless,  and  he  suffers  most  in  that  attribute  wherein  he  is 
impassible  —  his  immortality. 

I  thank  God  that  (with  joy  I  mention  it)  I  was  never  afraid 
of  hell,  nor  never  grew  pale  at  the  description  of  that  place.  I 
have  so  fixed  my  contemplations  on  heaven,  that  I  have  almost 
forgot  the  idea  of  hell,  and  am  afraid  rather  to  lose  the  joys  of 
the  one  than  endure  the  misery  of  the  other.  To  be  deprived  of 
them  is  a  perfect  hell,  and  needs,  methinks,  no  addition  to  com¬ 
plete  our  afflictions.  That  terrible  term  hath  never  detained  me 
from  sin,  nor  do  I  owe  any  good  action  to  the  name  thereof.  I 
fear  God,  yet  am  not  afraid  of  him ;  his  mercies  make  me  ashamed 
of  my  sins,  before  his  judgments  afraid  thereof.  These  are  the 
forced  and  secondary  methods  of  his  wisdom,  which  he  useth  but 
as  the  last  remedy,  and  upon  provocation;  a  course  rather  to  de¬ 
ter  the  wicked  than  incite  the  virtuous  to  his  worship.  I  can 
hardly  think  there  was  ever  any  scared  into  heaven;  they  go  the 
fairest  way  to  heaven  that  would  serve  God  without  a  hell. 
Other  mercenaries  that  crouch  unto  him,  in  fear  of  hell,  though 
they  term  themselves  the  servants,  are  indeed  but  the  slaves  of 
the  Almighty. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


621 

And,  to  be  true,  and  speak  my  soul,  when  I  survey  the  oc¬ 
currences  of  my  life,  and  call  into  account  the  finger  of  God,  I 
can  perceive  nothing  but  an  abyss  and  mass  of  mercies,  either  in 
general  to  mankind,  or  in  particular  to  myself:  and  whether  out 
of  the  prejudice  of  my  affection,  or  an  inverting  and  partial  con¬ 
ceit  of  his  mercies,  I  know  not;  but  those  which  others  term 
crosses,  afflictions,  judgments,  misfortunes,  to  me,  who  inquire 
further  into  them  than  their  visible  effects,  they  both  appear, 
and  in  event  have  ever  proved,  the  secret  and  dissembled  favors 
of  his  affection.  It  is  a  singular  piece  of  wisdom  to  apprehend 
truly,  and  without  passion,  the  works  of  God,  and  so  well  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  his  justice  from  his  mercy,  as  not  to  miscall  those  noble 
attributes;  yet  it  is  likewise  an  honest  piece  of  logic  so  to  dis¬ 
pute  and  argue  the  proceedings  of  God,  as  to  distinguish  even 
his  judgments  into  mercies.  For  God  is  merciful  unto  all,  be¬ 
cause  better  to  the  worst  than  the  best  deserve;  and  to  say  he 
punisheth  none  in  this  world,  though  it  be  a  paradox,  is  no 
absurdity.  To  one  that  hath  committed  murder  if  the  judge 
should  only  ordain  a  fine,  it  were  a  madness  to  call  this  a  pun¬ 
ishment,  and  to  repine  at  the  sentence  rather  than  admire  the 
clemency  of  the  judge.  Thus  our  offenses  being  mortal,  and  de¬ 
serving  not  only  death,  but  damnation,  if  the  goodness  of  God 
be  content  to  traverse  and  pass  them  over  with  a  loss,  misfor¬ 
tune,  or  disease,  what  frenzy  were  it  to  term  this  a  punishment 
rather  than  an  extremity  of  mercy,  and  to  groan  under  the  rod 
of  his  judgments  rather  than  admire  the  sceptre  of  his  mercies! 
Therefore,  to  adore,  honor,  and  admire  him  is  a  debt  of  grati¬ 
tude  due  from  the  obligation  of  our  nature,  states,  and  condi¬ 
tions;  and  with  these  thoughts,  he  that  knows  them  best  will  not 
deny  that  I  adore  him.  That  I  obtain  heaven,  and  the  bliss 
thereof,  is  accidental,  and  not  the  intended  work  of  my  devotion ; 
it  being  a  felicity  I  can  neither  think  to  deserve,  nor  scarce  in 
modesty  to  expect.  For  those  two  ends  of  us  all,  either  as  re¬ 
wards  or  punishments,  are  mercifully  ordained  and  disproportion¬ 
ately  disposed  unto  our  actions;  the  one  being  so  far  beyond  our 
deserts,  the  other  so  infinitely  below  our  demerits. 

There  is  no  salvation  to  those  that  believe  not  in  Christ,  that 
is,  say  some,  since  his  nativity,  and  as  divinity  affirmeth,  be¬ 
fore  also;  which  makes  me  much  apprehend  the  ends  of  those 
honest  worthies  and  philosophers  which  died  before  his  incarna¬ 
tion.  It  is  hard  to  place  those  souls  in  hell  whose  worthy  lives 


622 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


do  teach  us  virtue  on  earth;  methinks  amongst  those  many  sub¬ 
divisions  of  hell  there  might  have  been  one  limbo  left  for  these. 
What  a  strange  vision  will  it  be  to  see  their  poetical  fictions 
converted  into  verities,  and  their  imagined  and  fancied  furies 
into  real  devils!  How  strange  to  them  will  sound  the  history  of 
Adam  when  they  shall  suffer  for  him  they  never  heard  of ! 
When  they  who  derive  their  genealogy  from  the  gods  shall 
know  they  are  the  unhappy  issue  of  sinful  man!  It  is  an  inso¬ 
lent  part  of  reason  to  controvert  the  works  of  God,  or  question 
the  justice  of  his  proceedings.  Could  humility  teach  others,  as  it 
hath  instructed  me,  to  contemplate  the  infinite  and  incomprehen¬ 
sible  distance  betwixt  the  Creator  and  the  creature;  or  did  we 
seriously  perpend  that  one  simile  of  Saint  Paul,  (<  Shall  the  vessel 
say  to  the  potter,  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ? y)  it  would  pre¬ 
vent  these  arrogant  disputes  of  reason,  nor  would  we  argue  the 
definitive  sentence  of  God,  either  to  heaven  or  hell.  Men  that 
live  according  to  the  right  rule  and  law  of  reason  live  but  in 
their  own  kind,  as  beasts  do  in  theirs;  who  justly  obey  the  pre¬ 
script  of  their  natures,  and  therefore  cannot  reasonably  demand 
a  reward  of  their  actions,  as  only  obeying  the  natural  dictates  of 
their  reason.  It  will,  therefore,  and  must  at  last  appear,  that 
all  salvation  is  through  Christ;  which  verity,  I  fear,  these  great 
examples  of  virtue  must  confirm,  and  make  it  good,  how  the 
perfectest  actions  of  earth  have  no  title  or  claim  unto  heaven. 

Nor  truly  do  I  think  the  lives  of  these,  or  of  any  other,  were 
ever  correspondent,  or  in  all  points  conformable  unto  their  doc¬ 
trines.  It  is  evident  that  Aristotle  transgressed  the  rule  of  his 
own  ethics.  The  stoics  that  condemn  passion,  and  command  a 
man  to  laugh  in  Phalaris’s  bull,  could  not  endure  without  a  groan 
a  fit  of  the  stone  or  colic.  The  skeptics  that  affirmed  they  knew 
nothing,  even  in  that  opinion  confuted  themselves,  and  thought 
they  knew  more  than  all  the  world  beside.  Diogenes  I  hold  to 
be  the  most  vainglorious  man  of  his  time,  and  more  ambitious  in 
refusing  all  honors  than  Alexander  in  rejecting  none.  Vice  and 
the  devil  put  a  fallacy  upon  our  reasons,  and,  provoking  us  too 
hastily  to  run  from  it,  entangle  and  profound  us  deeper  in  it. 
The  Duke  of  Venice,  that  weds  himself  unto  the  sea  by  a  ring 
of  gold,  I  will  not  accuse  of  prodigality,  because  it  is  a  solemnity 
of  good  use  and  consequence  in  the  state;  but  the  philosopher 
that  threw  his  money  into  the  sea  to  avoid  avarice  was  a  notori¬ 
ous  prodigal.  There  is  no  road  or  ready  way  to  virtue*  it  is  not 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  623 

an  easy  point  of  art  to  disentangle  ourselves  from  this  riddle  or 
web  of  sin.  To  perfect  virtue,  as  to  religion,  there  is  required  a 
panoply  or  complete  armor:  that  whilst  we  lie  at  close  ward 
against  one  vice,  we  lie  not  open  to  the  veney  of  another.  And 
indeed  wiser  discretions,  that  have  the  thread  of  reason  to 
conduct  them,  offend  without  pardon;  whereas  underheads  may 
stumble  without  dishonor.  There  go  so  many  circumstances  to 
piece  up  one  good  action,  that  it  is  a  lesson  to  be  good,  and  we 
are  forced  to  be  virtuous  by  the  book.  Again,  the  practice  of 
men  holds  not  an  equal  place,  yea,  and  often  runs  counter  to 
their  theory;  we  naturally  know  what  is  good,  but  naturally  pur¬ 
sue  what  is  evil:  the  rhetoric  wherewith  I  persuade  another  can¬ 
not  persuade  myself ;  there  is  a  depraved  appetite  in  us,  that  will 
with  patience  hear  the  learned  instructions  of  reason,  but  yet 
perform  no  further  than  agrees  to  its  own  irregular  humor.  In 
brief,  we  all  are  monsters,  that  is,  a  composition  of  man  and 
beast;  wherein  we  must  endeavor  to  be  as  the  poets  fancy  that 
wise  man  Chiron  —  that  is,  to  have  the  region  of  man  above  that 
of  beast,  and  sense  to  sit  but  at  the  feet  of  reason.  Lastly,  I  do 
desire  with  God,  that  all,  but  yet  affirm  with  men,  that  few  shall 
know  salvation;  that  the  bridge  is  narrow,  the  passage  strait  unto 
life:  yet  those  who  do  confine  the  Church  of  God  either  to  par¬ 
ticular  nations,  churches,  or  families,  have  made  it  far  narrower 
than  our  Savior  ever  meant  it. 

The  vulgarity  of  those  judgments  that  wrap  the  Church  of 
God  in  Strabo’s  cloak  and  restrain  it  unto  Europe,  seem  to  me 
as  bad  geographers  as  Alexander,  who  thought  he  had  conquered 
all  the  world  when  he  had  not  subdued  the  half  of  any  part 
thereof.  For  we  cannot  deny  the  Church  of  God  both  in  Asia 
and  Africa,  if  we  do  not  forget  the  peregrinations  of  the  Apostles, 
the  deaths  of  the  martyrs,  the  sessions  of  many,  and,  even  in 
our  reformed  judgment,  lawful  councils,  held  in  those  parts  in 
the  minority  and  nonage  of  ours.  Nor  must  a  few  differences, 
more  remarkable  in  the  eyes  of  man  than  perhaps  in  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  God,  excommunicate  from  heaven  one  another,  much 
less  those  Christians  who  are  in  a  manner  all  martyrs,  maintain¬ 
ing  their  faith  in  the  noble  way  of  persecution  and  serving  God 
in  the  fire,  whereas  we  honor  him  in  the  sunshine.  It  is  true 
we  all  hold  there  is  a  number  of  elect,  and  many  to  be  saved; 
yet  take  our  opinions  together,  and  from  the  confusion  thereof 
there  will  be  no  such  thing  as  salvation,  nor  shall  any  one  be 


624 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


saved.  For  first,  the  Church  of  Rome  condemneth  us,  we  like¬ 
wise  them;  the  sub-reformists  and  sectaries  sentence  the  doctrine 
of  our  Church  as  damnable;  the  atomist,  or  familist,  reprobates 
all  these;  and  all  these  them  again.  Thus,  whilst  the  mercies 
of  God  do  promise  us  heaven,  our  conceits  and  opinions  exclude 
us  from  that  place.  There  must  be  therefore  more  than  one 
Saint  Peter.  Particular  churches  and  sects  usurp  the  gates  of 
heaven  and  turn  the  key  against  each  other;  and  thus  we  go 
to  heaven  against  each  other’s  wills,  conceits,  and  opinions,  and, 
with  as  much  uncharity  as  ignorance,  do  err,  I  fear,  in  points 
not  only  of  our  own,  but  one  another’s  salvation. 

I  believe  many  are  saved  who  to  man  seem  reprobated;  and 
many  are  reprobated  who  in  the  opinion  and  sentence  of  man 
stand  elected.  There  will  appear  at  the  last  day  strange  and 
unexpected  examples,  both  of  his  justice  and  his  mercy;  and 
therefore  to  define  either  is  folly  in  man,  and  insolency  even  in 
the  devils.  Those  acute  and  subtle  spirits,  in  all  their  sagacity, 
can  hardly  divine  who  shall  be  saved;  which  if  they  could  prog¬ 
nosticate,  their  labor  were  at  an  end;  nor  need  they  compass  the 
earth,  seeking  whom  they  may  devour.  Those  who,  upon  a  rigid 
application  of  the  law,  sentence  Solomon  unto  damnation,  con¬ 
demn  not  only  him  but  themselves  and  the  whole  world;  for  by 
the  letter,  and  written  word  of  God,  we  are,  without  exception, 
in  the  state  of  death;  but  there  is  a  prerogative  of  God,  and  an 
arbitrary  pleasure  above  the  letter  of  his  own  law,  by  which  alone 
we  can  pretend  unto  salvation,  and  through  which  Solomon  might 
be  as  easily  saved  as  those  who  condemn  him. 

The  number  of  those  who  pretend  unto  salvation,  and  those 
infinite  swarms  who  think  to  pass  through  the  eye  of  this  needle, 
have  much  amazed  me.  That  name  and  compellation  of  (<  little 
flock w  doth  not  comfort,  but  deject  my  devotion,  especially  when 
I  reflect  upon  mine  own  unworthiness,  wherein,  according  to  my 
humble  apprehensions,  I  am  below  them  all.  I  believe  there 
shall  never  be  an  anarchy  in  heaven;  but  as  there  are  hierarchies 
amongst  the  angels,  so  shall  there  be  degrees  of  priority  amongst 
the  saints.  Yet  it  is,  I  protest,  beyond  my  ambition  to  aspire 
unto  the  first  ranks;  my  desires  only  are,  and  I  shall  be  happy 
therein,  to  be  but  the  last  man,  and  bring  up  the  rear  in  heaven. 

Again,  I  am  confident,  and  fully  persuaded,  yet  dare  not  take 
my  oath,  of  my  salvation.  I  am  as  it  were  sure,  and  do  believe 
without  all  doubt  that  there  is  such  a  city  as  Constantinople; 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


625 


yet  for  me  to  take  my  oath  thereon  were  a  kind  of  perjury, 
because  I  hold  no  infallible  warrant  from  my  own  sense  to  con¬ 
firm  me  in  the  certainty  thereof.  And  truly,  though  many  pre¬ 
tend  an  absolute  certainty  of  their  salvation,  yet  when  a  humble 
soul  shall  contemplate  her  own  unworthiness,  she  shall  meet 
with  many  doubts,  and  suddenly  find  how  little  we  stand  in  need 
of  the  precept  of  Saint  Paul,  (<  Work  out  your  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling.  *  That  which  is  the  cause  of  my  election,  I  hold 
to  be  the  cause  of  my  salvation,  which  was  the  mercy  and  bene 
placet  of  God,  before  I  was,  or  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
<(  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am,"  is  the  saying  of  Christ:  yet  is  it 
true  in  some  sense,  if  I  say  it  of  myself;  for  I  was  not  only  be¬ 
fore  myself,  but  Adam,  that  is,  in  the  idea  of  God,  and  the  de¬ 
cree  of  that  synod  held  from  all  eternity.  And  in  this  sense,  I 
say,  the  world  was  before  the  creation,  and  at  the  end  before  it 
had  a  beginning;  and  thus  was  I  dead  before  I  was  alive: 
though  my  grave  be  England,  my  dying  place  was  paradise;  and 
Eve  miscarried  of  me  before  she  conceived  of  Cain. 

Insolent  zeals  that  do  decry  good  works,  and  rely  only  upon 
faith,  take  not  away  merit:  for  depending  upon  the  efficacy  of 
their  faith,  they  enforce  the  condition  of  God,  and  in  a  more 
sophistical  way  do  seem  to  challenge  heaven.  It  was  decreed  by 
God,  that  only  those  that  lapped  in  the  water  like  dogs  should 
have  the  honor  to  destroy  the  Midianites;  yet  could  none  of 
those  justly  challenge  or  imagine  he  deserved  that  honor  there¬ 
upon.  I  do  not  deny  but  that  true  faith,  and  such  as  God  re¬ 
quires,  is  not  only  a  mark  or  token,  but  also  a  means  of  our 
salvation;  but  where  to  find  this  is  as  obscure  to  me  as  my  last 
end.  And  if  our  Savior  could  object  unto  his  own  Disciples  and 
favorites  a  faith  that,  to  the  quantity  of  a  grain  of  mustard  seed, 
is  able  to  remove  mountains,  surely  that  which  we  boast  of  is 
not  anything,  or  at  the  most  but  a  remove  from  nothing.  This 
is  the  tenor  of  my  belief;  wherein  though  there  be  many  things 
singular,  and  to  the  humor  of  my  irregular  self,  yet  if  they  square 
not  with  maturer  judgments  I  disclaim  them,  and  do  no  further 
favor  them  than  the  learned  and  best  judgments  shall  authorize 
them. 


11—40 


626 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


Part  II 

Now  for  that  other  virtue  of  charity,  without  which  faith  is  a 
mere  notion,  and  of  no  existence.  I  have  ever  endeavored  to 
nourish  the  merciful  disposition  and  humane  inclination  I  bor¬ 
rowed  from  my  parents,  and  regulate  it  to  the  written  and  pre¬ 
scribed  laws  of  charity;  and  if  I  hold  the  true  anatomy  of 
myself,  I  am  delineated  and  naturally  framed  to  such  a  piece 
of  virtue.  For  I  am  of  a  constitution  so  general  that  it  com¬ 
ports  and  sympathizeth  with  all  things;  I  have  no  antipathy,  or 
rather  idiosyncrasy,  in  diet,  humor,  air,  anything.  I  wonder  not 
at  the  French  for  their  dishes  of  frogs,  snails,  and  toadstools, 
nor  at  the  Jews  for  locusts  and  grasshoppers;  but  being  amongst 
them,  make  them  my  common  viands;  and  I  find  them  agree 
with  my  stomach  as  well  as  theirs.  I  could  digest  a  salad  gath¬ 
ered  in  a  churchyard  as  well  as  in  a  garden.  I  cannot  start  at 
the  presence  of  a  serpent,  scorpion,  lizard,  or  salamander;  at  the 
sight  of  a  toad  or  viper  I  find  in  me  no  desire  to  take  up  a 
stone  to  destroy  them.  I  feel  not  in  myself  those  common  an¬ 
tipathies  that  I  can  discover  in  others.  Those  national  repug¬ 
nances  do  not  touch  me,  nor  do  I  behold  with  prejudice  the 
French,  Italian,  Spaniard,  and  Dutch;  but  where  I  find  their 
actions  in  balance  with  my  countrymen’s,  I  honor,  love,  and  em¬ 
brace  them  in  the  same  degree.  I  was  born  in  the  eighth  cli¬ 
mate,  but  seem  to  be  framed  and  constellated  unto  all.  I  am 
no  plant  that  will  not  prosper  out  of  a  garden:  all  places,  all 
airs  make  unto  me  one  country  —  I  am  in  England  everywhere, 
and  under  any  meridian.  I  have  been  shipwrecked,  yet  am  not 
enemy  with  the  sea  or  winds.  I  can  study,  play,  or  sleep  in  a 
tempest.  In  brief,  I  am  averse  from  nothing:  my  conscience 
would  give  me  the  lie  if  I  should  absolutely  detest  or  hate  any 
essence  but  the  devil;  or  so  at  least  abhor  anything,  but  that 
we  might  come  to  composition.  If  there  be  any  among  those 
common  objects  of  hatred  I  do  contemn  and  laugh  at,  it  is  that 
great  enemy  of  reason,  virtue,  and  religion,  the  multitude;  that 
numerous  piece  of  monstrosity,  which  taken  asunder  seem  men 
and  the  reasonable  creatures  of  God,  but  confused  together  make 
but  one  great  beast,  and  a  monstrosity  more  prodigious  than 
hydra.  It  is  no  breach  of  charity  to  call  these  fools;  it  is  the 
style  all  holy  writers  have  afforded  them,  set  down  by  Solomon 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


627 


in  canonical  Scripture,  and  a  point  of  our  faith  to  believe  so. 
Neither  in  the  name  of  multitude  do  I  only  include  the  base 
and  minor  sort  of  people;  there  is  a  rabble  even  amongst  the 
gentry,  a  sort  of  plebeian  heads,  whose  fancy  moves  with  the 
same  wheel  as  these;  men  in  the  same  level  with  mechanics, 
though  their  fortunes  do  somewhat  gild  their  infirmities,  and 
their  purses  compound  for  their  follies.  But  as  in  casting  ac¬ 
count,  three  or  four  men  together  come  short  in  account  of  one 
man  placed  by  himself  below  them,  so  neither  are  a  troop  of 
these  ignorant  Doradoes  of  that  true  esteem  and  value  as  many 
a  forlorn  person  whose  condition  doth  place  him  below  their 
feet.  Let  us  speak  like  politicians;  there  is  a  nobility  without 
heraldry,  a  natural  dignity  whereby  one  man  is  ranked  with  an¬ 
other,  another  filed  before  him,  according  to  the  quality  of  his 
desert,  and  pre-eminence  of  his  good  parts,  though  the  corruption 
of  these  times  and  the  bias  of  present  practice  wheel  another 
way.  Thus  it  was  in  the  first  and  primitive  commonwealths,  and 
is  yet  in  the  integrity  and  cradle  of  well-ordered  polities,  till  cor- 
luption  getteth  ground,  ruder  desires  laboring  after  that  which 
wiser  considerations  contemn,  every  one  having  a  liberty  to 
amass  and  heap  up  riches,  and  they  a  licence  or  faculty  to  do  or 
purchase  anything. 

This  general  and  indifferent  temper  of  mine  doth  more  nearly- 
dispose  me  to  this  noble  virtue.  It  is  a  happiness  to  be  born 
and  framed  unto  virtue,  and  to  grow  up  from  the  seeds  of  na¬ 
ture  rather  than  the  inoculation  and  forced  graffs  of  education:: 
yet  if  we  are  directed  only  by  our  particular  natures,  and  regu¬ 
late  our  inclinations  by  no  higher  rule  than  that  of  our  reasons, 
we  are  but  moralists;  divinity  will  still  call  us  heathen;  therefore 
this  great  work  of  charity  must  have  other  motives,  ends,  and  im¬ 
pulsions.  I  give  no  alms  only  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  my  brother, 
but  to  fulfill  and  accomplish  the  will  and  command  of  my  God;  I 
draw  not  my  purse  for  his  sake  that  demands  it,  but  his  that 
enjoined  it;  I  relieve  no  man  upon  the  rhetoric  of  his  miseries, 
nor  to  content  mine  own  commiserating  disposition :  for  this  is  still 
but  moral  charity,  and  an  act  that  oweth  more  to  passion  than  rea¬ 
son.  He  that  relieves  another  upon  the  bare  suggestion  and  bowels 
of  pity  doth  not  this  so  much  for  his  sake  as  for  his  own :  for  by 
compassion  we  make  others’  misery  our  own ;  and  so,  by  relieving 
them,  we  relieve  ourselves  also.  It  is  as  erroneous  a  conceit  to  re¬ 
dress  other  men’s  misfortunes  upon  the  common  considerations  of 


628 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


merciful  natures,  that  it  may  be  one  day  our  own  case ;  for  this  is 
a  sinister  and  politic  kind  of  charity,  whereby  we  seem  to  bespeak 
the  pities  of  men  in  the  like  occasions.  And  truly  I  have  observed 
that  those  professed  eleemosynaries,  though  in  a  crowd  or  multi¬ 
tude,  do  yet  direct  and  place  their  petitions  on  a  few  and  selected 
persons:  there  is  surely  a  physiognomy,  which  those  experienced 
and  master  mendicants  observe,  whereby  they  instantly  discover 
a  merciful  aspect,  and  will  single  out  a  face  wherein  they  spy 
the  signatures  and  marks  of  mercy:  for  there  are  mystically  in 
our  faces  certain  characters  which  carry  in  them  the  motto  of 
our  souls,  wherein  he  that  can  read  ABC  may  read  our  natures. 
I  hold,  moreover,  that  there  is  a  phytognomy,  or  physiognomy, 
not  only  of  men,  but  of  plants  and  vegetables,  and  in  every  one 
of  them  some  outward  figures  which  hang  as  signs  or  bushes  of 
their  inward  forms.  The  finger  of  God  hath  left  an  inscription 
upon  all  his  works,  not  graphical,  or  composed  of  letters,  but  of 
their  several  forms,  constitutions,  parts,  and  operations,  which 
aptly  joined  together  do  make  one  word  that  doth  express  their 
natures.  By  these  letters  God  calls  the  stars  by  their  names; 
and  by  this  alphabet  Adam  assigned  to  every  creature  a  name 
peculiar  to  its  nature.  Now  there  are,  besides  these  characters 
in  our  faces,  certain  mystical  figures  in  our  hands,  which  I  dare 
not  call  mere  dashes,  strokes  a  la  volte,  or  at  random,  because 
delineated  by  a  pencil  that  never  works  in  vain;  and  hereof  I 
take  more  particular  notice,  because  I  carry  that  in  mine  own 
hand  which  I  could  never  read  of  nor  discover  in  another.  Aris¬ 
totle,  I  confess,  in  his  acute  and  singular  book  of  physiognomy, 
hath  made  no  mention  of  chiromancy;  yet  I  believe  the  Egyp¬ 
tians,  who  were  nearer  addicted  to  these  abstruse  and  mystical 
sciences,  had  a  knowledge  therein,  to  which  those  vagabond  and 
counterfeit  Egyptians  did  after  pretend,  and  perhaps  retained  a 
few  corrupted  principles,  which  sometimes  might  verify  their 
prognostics. 

It  is  the  common  wonder  of  all  men,  how  among  so  many 
millions  of  faces  there  should  be  none  alike;  now  contrary,  I 
wonder  as  much  how  there  should  be  any.  He  that  shall  con¬ 
sider  how  many  thousand  several  words  have  been  carelessly  and 
without  study  composed  out  of  twenty-four  letters;  withal,  how 
many  hundred  lines  there  are  to  be  drawn  in  the  fabric  of  one 
man,  shall  easily  find  that  this  variety  is  necessary;  and  it  will 
be  very  hard  that  they  shall  so  concur  as  to  make  one  portrait 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


629 


like  another.  Let  a  painter  carelessly  limn  out  a  million  faces, 
and  you  shall  find  them  all  different.  Yea,  let  him  have  his  copy 
before  him,  yet  after  all  his  art  there  will  remain  a  sensible  dis¬ 
tinction;  for  the  pattern  or  example  of  everything-  is  the  per* 
fectest  in  that  kind,  whereof  we  still  come  short,  though  we 
transcend  or  go  beyond  it,  because  herein  it  is  wide,  and  agrees 
not  in  all  points  unto  the  copy.  Nor  doth  the  similitude  of 
creatures  disparage  the  variety  of  nature,  nor  any  way  confound 
the  works  of  God.  For  even  in  things  alike  there  is  diversity; 
and  those  that  do  seem  to  accord,  do  manifestly  disagree.  And 
thus  is  man  like  God;  for  in  the  same  things  that  we  resemble 
him,  we  are  utterly  different  from  him.  There  was  never  any¬ 
thing  so  like  another  as  in  all  points  to  concur;  there  will  ever 
some  reserved  difference  slip  in,  to  prevent  the  identity  without 
which  two  several  things  would  not  be  alike,  but  the  same,  which 
is  impossible. 

But  to  return  from  philosophy  to  charity:  I  hold  not  so  nar¬ 
row  a  conceit  of  this  virtue,  as  to  conceive  that  to  give  alms  is 
only  to  be  charitable,  or  think  a  piece  of  liberality  can  compre¬ 
hend  the  total  of  charity.  Divinity  hath  wisely  divided  the  act 
thereof  into  many  branches,  and  hath  taught  us  in  this  narrow 
way  many  paths  unto  goodness:  as  many  ways  as  we  may  do 
good,  so  many  ways  we  may  be  charitable.  There  are  infirmities, 
not  only  of  body,  but  of  soul  and  fortunes,  which  do  require  the 
merciful  hand  of  our  abilities.  I  cannot  contemn  a  man  for 
ignorance,  but  behold  him  with  as  much  pity  as  I  do  Lazarus. 
It  is  no  greater  charity  to  clothe  his  body  than  apparel  the  na¬ 
kedness  of  his  soul.  It  is  an  honorable  object  to  see  the  reasons 
of  other  men  wear  our  liveries,  and  their  borrowed  understand¬ 
ings  do  homage  to  the  bounty  of  ours.  It  is  the  cheapest  way 
of  beneficence,  and,  like  the  natural  charity  of  the  sun,  illuminates 
another  without  obscuring  itself.  To  be  reserved  and  caitiff  in 
this  part  of  goodness  is  the  sordidest  piece  of  covetousness,  and 
more  contemptible  than  pecuniary  avarice.  To  this  (as  calling 
myself  a  scholar)  I  am  obliged  by  the  duty  of  my  condition.  I 
make  not,  therefore,  my  head  a  grave,  but  a  treasure  of  knowl¬ 
edge;  I  intend  no  monopoly,  but  a  community  in  learning;  I 
study  not  for  my  own  sake  only,  but  for  theirs  that  study  not 
for  themselves.  I  envy  no  man  that  knows  more  than  myself, 
but  pity  them  that  know  less.  I  instruct  no  man  as  an  exercise 
of  my  knowledge,  or  with  an  intent  rather  to  nourish  and  keep 


630 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


it  alive  in  mine  own  head,  than  beget  and  propagate  it  in  his; 
and  in  the  midst  of  all  my  endeavors  there  is  but  one  thought  that 
dejects  me,  that  my  acquired  parts  must  perish  with  myself,  nor 
can  be  legacied  among  my  honored  friends.  I  cannot  fall  out, 
or  contemn  a  man  for  an  error,  or  conceive  why  a  difference  in 
opinion  should  divide  an  affection ;  for  controversies,  disputes, 
and  argumentations,  both  in  philosophy  and  divinity,  if  they  meet 
with  discreet  and  peaceable  natures,  do  not  infringe  the  laws  of 
(  charity.  In  all  disputes,  so  much  as  there  is  of  passion,  so  much 
there  is  of  nothing  to  the  purpose;  for  then  reason,  like  a  bad 
hound,  spends  upon  a  false  scent,  and  forsakes  the  question  first 
started.  And  this  is  one  reason  why  controversies  are  never  de¬ 
termined;  for  though  they  be  amply  proposed,  they  are  scarce  at 
all  handled,  they  do  so  swell  with  unnecessary  digressions;  and 
the  parenthesis  on  the  party  is  often  as  large  as  the  main  dis¬ 
course  upon  the  subject.  The  foundations  of  religion  are  already 
established,  and  the  principles  of  salvation  subscribed  unto  by 
all;  there  remain  not  many  controversies  worth  a  passion,  and 
yet  never  any  disputed  without,  not  only  in  divinity,  but  inferior 
arts:  what  a  fiaTpaxojy.uofj.ayta  and  hot  skirmish  is  betwixt  S.  and 
T.  in  Lucian;  how  do  grammarians  hack  and  slash  for  the  geni- 
itive  case  in  Jupiter!  How  do  they  break  their  own  pates  to 
salve  that  of  Priscian :  <(  Si  foret  in  terris,  rider et  Democritus  !  * 
Yea,  even  amongst  wiser  militants,  how  many  wounds  have 
been  given,  and  credits  slain,  for  the  poor  victory  of  an  opinion, 
or  beggarly  conquest  of  a  distinction !  Scholars  are  men  of 
peace,  they  bear  no  arms,  but  their  tongues  are  sharper  than 
Actius’s  razor;  their  pens  carry  further,  and  give  a  louder  report 
than  thunder.  I  had  rather  stand  the  shock  of  a  basilisco  than 
the  fury  of  a  merciless  pen.  It  is  not  mere  zeal  to  learning,  or 
devotion  to  the  muses,  that  wiser  princes  patronize  the  arts  and 
carry  an  indulgent  aspect  unto  scholars;  but  a  desire  to  have 
their  names  eternized  by  the  memory  of  their  writings,  and  a 
fear  of  the  revengeful  pen  of  succeeding  ages:  for  these  are  the 
men,  that  when  they  have  played  their  parts,  and  had  their 
exits,  must  step  out  and  give  the  moral  of  their  scenes,  and  de¬ 
liver  unto  posterity  an  inventory  of  their  virtues  and  vices.  And 
surely  there  goes  a  great  deal  of  conscience  to  the  compiling  of 
a  history:  there  is  no  reproach  to  the  scandal  of  a  story;  it  is 
such  an  authentic  kind  of  falsehood  that  with  authority  belies 
our  good  names  to  all  nations  and  posterity. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


631 


There  is  another  offense  unto  charity,  which  no  author  hath 
ever  written  of,  and  few  take  notice  of;  and  that  is  the  reproach, 
not  of  whole  professions,  mysteries,  and  conditions,  but  of  whole 
nations;  wherein  by  opprobrious  epithets  we  miscall  each  other, 
and  by  an  uncharitable  logic,  from  a  disposition  in  a  few,  con¬ 
clude  a  habit  in  all. 

Saint  Paul,  that  calls  the  Cretans  liars,  doth  it  but  indirectly, 
and  upon  quotation  of  their  own  poet.  It  is  as  bloody  a  thought 
in  one  way  as  Nero’s  was  in  another.  For  by  a  word  we  wound 
a  thousand,  and  at  one  blow  assassinate  the  honor  of  a  nation. 
It  is  as  complete  a  piece  of  madness  to  miscall  and  rave  against 
the  times,  or  think  to  recall  men  to  reason  by  a  fit  of  passion. 
Democritus,  that  thought  to  laugh  the  times  into  goodness,  seems 
to  me  as  deeply  hypochondriac  as  Heraclitus  that  bewailed  them. 
It  moves  not  my  spleen  to  behold  the  multitude  in  their  proper 
humors,  that  is,  in  their  fits  of  folly  and  madness,  as  well  under¬ 
standing  that  wisdom  is  not  profaned  unto  the  world,  and  it  is 
the  privilege  of  a  few  to  be  virtuous.  They  that  endeavor  to 
abolish  vice,  destroy  also  virtue,  for  contraries,  though  they  de¬ 
stroy  one  another,  are  yet  in  life  of  one  another.  Thus  virtue 
(abolish  vice)  is  an  idea:  again,  the  community  of  sin  doth  not 
disparage  goodness;  for  when  vice  gains  upon  the  major  part, 
virtue,  in  whom  it  remains,  becomes  more  excellent:  and  being 
lost  in  some,  multiplies  its  goodness  in  others,  which  remain  un¬ 
touched,  and  persist  entire  in  the  general  inundation.  I  can 
therefore  behold  vice  without  a  satire,  content  only  with  an  ad¬ 
monition  or  instructive  reprehension;  for  noble  natures,  and  such 
as  are  capable  of  goodness,  are  railed  into  vice  that  might  as 
easily  be  admonished  into  virtue;  and  we  should  be  all  so  far  the 
orators  of  goodness  as  to  protect  her  from  the  power  of  vice,  and 
maintain  the  cause  of  injured  truth.  No  man  can  justly  censure 
or  condemn  another,  because  indeed  no  man  truly  knows  another. 
This  I  perceive  in  myself;  for  I  am  in  the  dark  to  all  the  world, 
and  my  nearest  friends  behold  me  but  in  a  cloud:  those  that 
know  me  but  superficially,  think  less  of  me  than  I  do  of  myself; 
those  of  my  near  acquaintance  think  more.  God,  who  truly 
knows  me,  knows  that  I  am  nothing;  for  he  only  beholds  me 
and  all  the  world;  who  looks  not  on  us  through  a  derived  ray, 
or  a  trajection  of  a  sensible  species,  but  beholds  the  substance 
without  the  helps  of  accidents,  and  the  forms  of  things  as  we 
their  operations.  Further,  no  man  can  judge  another  because  no 


632 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


man  knows  himself;  for  we  censure  others  but  as  they  disagree 
from  that  humor  which  we  fancy  laudable  in  ourselves,  and  com¬ 
mend  others  but  for  that  wherein  they  seem  to  quadrate  and 
consent  with  us.  So  that  in  conclusion,  all  is  but  that  we  all 
condemn,  self-love.  It  is  the  general  complaint  of  these  times, 
and  perhaps  of  those  past,  that  charity  grows  cold;  which  I  per¬ 
ceive  most  verified  in  those  which  most  do  manifest  the  fires  and 
flames  of  zeal;  for  it  is  a  virtue  that  best  agrees  with  coldest 
natures,  and  such  as  are  complexioned  for  humility.  But  how 
shall  we  expect  charity  towards  others  when  we  are  uncharitable 
to  ourselves  ?  Charity  begins  at  home,  is  the  voice  of  the  world 
yet  is  every  man  his  greatest  enemy,  and,  as  it  were,  his  own 
executioner.  Non  occides ,  is  the  commandment  of  God,  yet  scarce 
observed  by  any  man ;  for  I  perceive  every  man  is  his  own 
Atropos,  and  lends  a  hand  to  cut  the  thread  of  his  own  days. 
Cain  was  not,  therefore,  the  first  murderer,  but  Adam,  who 
brought  in  death;  whereof  he  beheld  the  practice  and  example 
in  his  own  son  Abel,  and  saw  that  verified  in  the  experience  of 
another,  which  faith  could  not  persuade  him  in  the  theory  of 
himself. 

There  is,  I  think,  no  man  that  apprehends  his  own  miseries 
less  than  myself,  and  no  man  that  so  nearly  apprehends  another’s* 
I  could  lose  an  arm  without  a  tear,  and  with  few  groans,  me- 
thinks,  be  quartered  into  pieces;  yet  can  I  weep  most  seriously 
at  a  play,  and  receive  with  true  passion  the  counterfeit  grief  of 
those  known  and  professed  impostures.  It  is  a  barbarous  part 
of  inhumanity  to  add  unto  any  afflicted  party’s  misery,  or  en¬ 
deavor  to  multiply  in  any  man  a  passion,  whose  single  nature  is. 
already  above  his  patience:  this  was  the  greatest  affliction  of 
Job;  and  those  oblique  expostulations  of  his  friends,  a  deeper 
injury  than  the  downright  blows  of  the  devil.  It  is  not  the  tears 
of  our  own  eyes  only,  but  of  our  friends  also,  that  do  exhaust 
the  current  of  our  sorrows;  which  falling  into  many  streams, 
runs  more  peaceably,  and  is  contented  with  a  narrower  channel. 
It  is  an  act  within  the  power  of  charity,  to  translate  a  passion 
out  of  one  breast  into  another,  and  to  divide  a  sorrow  almost  out 
of  itself;  for  an  affliction,  like  a  dimension,  may  be  so  divided, 
as  if  not  invisible,  at  least  to  become  insensible.  Now,  with  my 
friend  I  desire  not  to  share  or  participate,  but  to  engross  his  sor¬ 
rows,  that  by  making  them  mine  own  I  may  more  easily  discuss 
them;  for  in  mine  own  reason  and  within  myself,  I  can  com- 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


63S 

mand  that  which  I  cannot  entreat  without  myself,  and  within 
the  circle  of  another.  I  have  often  thought  those  noble  pairs 
and  examples  of  friendship  not  so  truly  histories  of  what  had 
been,  as  fictions  of  what  should  be;  but  I  now  perceive  nothing 
in  them  but  possibilities,  nor  anything  in  the  heroic  examples  of 
Damon  and  Pythias,  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  which  methinks  upon 
some  grounds  I  could  not  perform  within  the  narrow  compass  of 
myself.  That  a  man  should  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friend 
seems  strange  to  vulgar  affections,  and  such  as  confine  them¬ 
selves  within  that  worldly  principle,  Charity  begins  at  home. 
For  my  own  part,  I  could  never  remember  the  relations  that  I 
hold  unto  myself,  nor  the  respect  that  I  owe  unto  my  own  na¬ 
ture,  in  the  cause  of  God,  my  country,  and  my  friends.  Next  to 
these  three  I  do  embrace  myself :  I  confess  I  do  not  observe 
that  order  that  the  schools  ordain  our  affections,  to  love  our  par¬ 
ents,  wives,  children,  and  then  our  friends;  for  excepting  the 
injunctions  of  religion,  I  do  not  find  in  myself  such  a  necessary 
and  indissoluble  sympathy  to  all  those  of  my  blood.  I  hope  I 
do  not  break  the  fifth  commandment,  if  I  conceive  I  may  love 
my  friend  before  the  nearest  of  my  blood,  even  those  to  whom 
I  owe  the  principles  of  life.  I  never  yet  cast  a  true  affection 
on  a  woman,  but  I  have  loved  my  friend  as  I  do  virtue,  my  soul, 
my  God.  From  hence  methinks  I  do  conceive  how  God  loves 
man,  what  happiness  there  is  in  the  love  of  God.  Omitting  all 
other,  there  are  three  most  mystical  unions;  two  natures  in  one 
person;  three  persons  in  one  nature;  one  soul  in  two  bodies. 
For  though,  indeed,  they  be  really  divided,  yet  are  they  so  united, 
as  they  seem  but  one,  and  make  rather  a  duality  than  two  dis¬ 
tinct  souls. 

There  are  wonders  in  true  affection;  it  is  a  body  of  enigmas, 
mysteries,  and  riddles,  wherein  two  so  become  one,  as-  they  both 
become  two.  I  love  my  friend  before  myself,  and  yet  methinks 
I  do  not  love  him  enough.  Some  few  months  hence,  my  multi¬ 
plied  affection  will  make  me  believe  I  have  not  loved  him  at  all. 
When  I  am  from  him,  I  am  dead  till  I  be  with  him;  when  I  am 
with  him,  I  am  not  satisfied,  but  would  still  be  nearer  him. 
United  souls  are  not  satisfied  with  embraces,  but  desire  to  be 
truly  each  other;  which  being  impossible,  their  desires  are  infi¬ 
nite,  and  proceed  without  a  possibility  of  satisfaction.  Another 
misery  there  is  in  affection,  that  whom  we  truly  love  like  our 
own,  we  forget  their  looks,  nor  can  our  memory  retain  the  idea. 


634 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


of  their  faces;  and  it  is  no  wonder,  for  they  are  ourselves,  and 
our  affection  makes  their  looks  our  own.  This  noble  affection 
falls  not  on  vulgar  and  common  constitutions,  but  on  such  as  are 
marked  for  virtue.  He  that  can  love  his  friend  with  this  noble 
ardor  will,  in  a  competent  degree,  affect  all.  Now,  if  we  can 
bring  our  affections  to  look  beyond  the  body,  and  cast  an  eye 
upon  the  soul,  we  have  found  the  true  object,  not  only  of  friend¬ 
ship,  but  charity;  and  the  greatest  happiness  that  we  can  be¬ 
queath  the  soul  is  that  wherein  we  all  do  place  our  last  felicity, 
salvation;  which  though  it  be  not  in  our  power  to  bestow,  it  is 
in  our  charity  and  pious  invocations  to  desire,  if  not  procure  and 
further.  I  cannot  contentedly  frame  a  prayer  for  myself  in  par¬ 
ticular,  without  a  catalogue  for  my  friends;  nor  request  a  happi¬ 
ness  wherein  my  sociable  disposition  doth  not  desire  the  fellow¬ 
ship  of  my  neighbor.  I  never  heard  the  toll  of  a  passing  bell, 
though  in  my  mirth,  without  my  prayers  and  best  wishes  for  the 
departing  spirit.  I  cannot  go  to  cure  the  body  of  my  patient, 
but  I  forget  my  profession,  and  call  unto  God  for  his  soul.  I 
cannot  see  one  say  his  prayers,  but  instead  of  imitating  him,  I 
fall  into  a  supplication  for  him,  who,  perhaps,  is  no  more  to  me 
than  a  common  nature;  and  if  God  hath  vouchsafed  an  ear  to 
my  supplications,  there  are  surely  many  happy  that  never  saw 
me,  and  enjoy  the  blessing  of  my  unknown  devotions.  To  pray 
for  enemies,  that  is,  for  their  salvation,  is  no  harsh  precept,  but 
the  practice  of  our  daily  and  ordinary  devotions.  I  cannot  be¬ 
lieve  the  story  of  the  Italian:  our  bad  wishes  and  uncharitable 
desires  proceed  no  further  than  this  life;  it  is  the  devil,  and  the 
uncharitable  votes  of  hell,  that  desire  our  misery  in  the  world  to 
come. 

To  do  no  injury,  nor  take  none,  was  a  principle  which  to  my 
former  years  and  impatient  affections  seemed  to  contain  enough 
of  morality;  but  my  more  settled  years  and  Christian  constitu¬ 
tion  have  fallen  upon  severer  resolutions.  I  can  hold  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  injury;  that  if  there  be,  there  is  no  such  injury 
as  revenge,  and  no  such  revenge  as  the  contempt  of  an  injury; 
that  to  hate  another  is  to  malign  himself;  that  the  truest  way 
to  love  another  is  to  despise  ourselves.  I  were  unjust  unto  mine 
own  conscience,  if  I  should  say  I  am  at  variance  with  anything 
like  myself.  I  find  there  are  many  pieces  in  this  one  fabric  of 
man;  this  frame  is  raised  upon  a  mass  of  antipathies.  I  am  one, 
methinks,  but  as  the  world;  wherein,  notwithstanding,  there  are 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


635 


a  swarm  of  distinct  essences,  and  in  them  another  world  of  con¬ 
trarieties;  we  carry  private  and  domestic  enemies  within,  public 
and  more  hostile  adversaries  without.  The  devil,  that  did  but 
buffet  Saint  Paul,  plays,  methinks,  at  sharp  with  me.  Let  me  be 
nothing,  if  within  the  compass  of  myself  I  do  not  find  the  battle 
of  Lepanto,  passion  against  reason,  reason  against  faith,  faith 
against  the  devil,  and  my  conscience  against  all.  There  is  an¬ 
other  man  within  me,  that  is  angry  with  me,  rebukes,  commands, 
and  dastards  me.  I  have  no  conscience  of  marble,  to  resist  the 
hammer  of  more  heavy  offenses;  nor  yet  so  soft  and  waxen,  as 
to  take  the  impression  of  each  single  peccadillo  or  scape  of  in¬ 
firmity.  I  am  of  a  strange  belief,  that  it  is  as  easy  to  be  for¬ 
given  some  sins  as  to  commit  some  others.  For  my  original  sin, 
I  hold  it  to  be  washed  away  in  my  baptism;  for  my  actual  trans¬ 
gressions,  I  compute  and  reckon  with  God,  but  from  my  last  re¬ 
pentance,  sacrament,  or  general  absolution;  and  therefore  am  not 
terrified  with  the  sins  or  madness  of  my  youth.  I  thank  the 
goodness  of  God,  I  have  no  sins  that  want  a  name.  I  am  not 
singular  in  offenses;  my  transgressions  are  epidemical,  and  from 
the  common  breath  of  our  corruption.  For  there  are  certain 
tempers  of  body,  which,  matched  with  a  humorous  depravity  of 
mind,  do  hatch  and  produce  vitiosities,  whose  newness  and  mon¬ 
strosity  of  nature  admits  no  name;  this  was  the  temper  of  that 
lecher  that  carnalled  with  a  statue,  and  constitution  of  Nero  in 
his  spintrian  recreations;  for  the  heavens  are  not  only  fruitful  in 
new  and  unheard-of  stars,  the  earth  in  plants  and  animals,  but 
men’s  minds  also  in  villainy  and  vices.  Now  the  dullness  of  my 
reason  and  the  vulgarity  of  my  disposition  never  prompted  my 
invention,  nor  solicited  my  affection  unto  any  of  those;  yet  even 
those  common  and  quotidian  infirmities  that  so  necessarily  attend 
me,  and  do  seem  to  be  my  very  nature,  have  so  dejected  me,  so 
broken  the  estimation  that  I  should  have  otherwise  of  myself, 
that  I  repute  myself  the  most  abject  piece  of  mortality.  Divines 
prescribe  a  fit  of  sorrow  to  repentance;  there  goes  indignation, 
anger,  sorrow,  hatred  into  mine;  passions  of  a  contrary  nature, 
which  neither  seem  to  suit  with  this  action,  nor  my  proper  con¬ 
stitution.  It  is  no  breach  of  charity  to  ourselves,  to  be  at  vari¬ 
ance  with  our  vices,  nor  to  abhor  that  part  of  us  which  is  an 
enemy  to  the  ground  of  charity,  our  God;  wherein  we  do  but 
imitate  our  great  selves,  the  world,  whose  divided  antipathies  and 
contrary  faces  do  yet  carry  a  charitable  regard  unto  the  whole  by 


636 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


their  particular  discords,  preserving  the  common  harmony,  and 
keeping  in  fetters  those  powers  whose  rebellions,  once  masters, 
might  be  the  ruin  of  all. 

I  thank  God,  amongst  those  millions  of  vices  I  do  inherit  and 
hold  from  Adam,  I  have  escaped  one,  and  that  a  mortal  enemy 
to  charity,  the  first  and  father  sin,  not  only  of  man,  but  of  the 
devil  —  pride;  a  vice  whose  name  is  comprehended  in  a  mono¬ 
syllable,  but  in  its  nature  not  circumscribed  with  a  world.  I  have 
escaped  it  in  a  condition  that  can  hardly  avoid  it.  Those  petty 
acquisitions  and  reputed  perfections  that  advance  and  elevate  the 
conceits  of  other  men  add  no  feathers  unto  mine.  I  have  seen  a, 
grammarian  tower  and  plume  himself  over  a  single  line  in  Horace, 
and  show  more  pride  in  the  construction  of  one  ode  than  the 
author  in  the  composure  of  the  whole  book.  For  my  own  part, 
besides  the  jargon  and  patois  of  several  provinces,  I  understand 
no  less  than  six  languages;  yet  I  protest  I  have  no  higher  con¬ 
ceit  of  myself  than  had  our  fathers  before  the  confusion  of  Babel, 
when  there  was  but  one  language  in  the  world,  and  none  to 
boast  himself  either  linguist  or  critic.  I  have  not  only  seen 
several  countries,  beheld  the  nature  of  their  climes,  the  chorog- 
raphy  of  their  provinces,  topography  of  their  cities,  but  under¬ 
stood  their  several  laws,  customs,  and  policies;  yet  cannot  all  this 
persuade  the  dullness  of  my  spirit  unto  such  an  opinion  of  my¬ 
self,  as  I  behold  in  nimbler  and  conceited  heads,  that  never 
looked  a  degree  beyond  their  nests.  I  know  the  names,  and 
somewhat  more,  of  all  the  constellations  in  my  horizon,  yet  I 
have  seen  a  prating  mariner  that  could  only  name  the  pointers 
and  the  north  star,  outtalk  me,  and  conceit  himself  a  whole 
sphere  above  me.  I  know  most  of  the  plants  of  my  country,  and 
of  those  about  me;  yet  methinks  I  do  not  know  so  many  as 
when  I  did  but  know  a  hundred,  and  had  scarcely  ever  simpled 
further  than  Cheapside.  For  indeed,  heads  of  capacity,  and  such 
as  are  not  full  with  a  handful,  or  easy  measure  of  knowledge, 
think  they  know  nothing  till  they  know  all,  which  being  im¬ 
possible,  they  fall  upon  the  opinion  of  Socrates,  and  only  know 
they  know  not  anything.  I  cannot  think  that  Homer  pined  away 
upon  the  riddle  of  the  fisherman,  or  that  Aristotle,  who  under¬ 
stood  the  uncertainty  of  knowledge,  and  confessed  so  often  the 
reason  of  man  too  weak  for  the  works  of  nature,  did  ever  drown 
himself  upon  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the  Euripus.  We  do  but 
learn  to-day  what  our  better  advanced  judgments  will  unteach 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


637 


to-morrow;  and  Aristotle  doth  not  instruct  us  as  Plato  did  him, 
that  is,  to  confute  himself.  I  have  run  through  all  sorts,  yet 
find  no  rest  in  any;  though  our  first  studies  and  junior  endeavors 
may  style  us  peripatetics,  stoics,  or  academics,  yet  I  perceive  the 
wisest  heads  prove,  at  last,  almost  all  skeptics,  and  stand  like 
Janus  in  the  field  of  knowledge.  I  have  therefore  one  common 
and  authentic  philosophy  I  learned  in  the  schools,  whereby  I  dis¬ 
course  and  satisfy  the  reason  of  other  men ;  another  more  reserved 
and  drawn  from  experience,  whereby  I  content  mine  own.  Sol¬ 
omon,  that  complained  of  ignorance  in  the  height  of  knowledge, 
hath  not  only  humbled  my  conceits,  but  discouraged  my  endeav¬ 
ors.  There  is  yet  another  conceit  that  hath  sometimes  made  me 
shut  my  books,  which  tells  me  it  is  a  vanity  to  waste  our  days 
in  the  blind  pursuit  of  knowledge;  it  is  but  attending  a  little 
longer,  and  we  shall  enjoy  that  by  instinct  and  infusion,  which 
we  endeavor  at  here  by  labor  and  inquisition.  It  is  better  to  sit 
down  in  a  modest  ignorance  and  rest  contented  with  the  natural 
blessing  of  our  own  reasons,  than  buy  the  uncertain  knowledge 
of  this  life,  with  sweat  and  vexation,  which  death  gives  every 
fool  gratis,  and  is  an  accessory  of  our  glorification. 

I  was  never  yet  once,  and  commend  their  resolutions  who 
never  marry  twice:  not  that  I  disallow  of  second  marriage;  as 
neither  in  all  cases  of  polygamy,  which,  considering  some  times, 
and  the  unequal  number  of  both  sexes,  may  be  also  necessary. 
The  whole  world  was  made  for  man,  but  the  twelfth  part  of  man 
for  woman.  Man  is  the  whole  world  and  the  breath  of  God; 
woman  the  rib  and  crooked  piece  of  man.  I  speak  not  in  preju¬ 
dice,  nor  am  averse  from  that  sweet  sex,  but  naturally  amorous 
of  all  that  is  beautiful.  I  can  look  a  whole  day  with  delight 
upon  a  handsome  picture,  though  it  be  but  of  a  horse.  It  is  my 
temper,  and  I  like  it  the  better  to  affect  all  harmony;  and  sure 
there  is  music  even  in  the  beauty  and  the  silent  note  which 
Cupid  strikes  far  sweeter  than  the  sound  of  an  instrument.  For 
there  is  a  music  wherever  there  is  a  harmony,  order,  or  propor¬ 
tion;  and  thus  far  we  may  maintain  the  music  of  the  spheres; 
for  those  well-ordered  motions,  and  regular  paces,  though  they 
give  no  sound  unto  the  ear,  yet  to  the  understanding  they  strike 
a  note  most  full  of  harmony.  Whosoever  is  harmonically  com¬ 
posed  delights  in  harmony;  which  makes  me  much  distrust  the 
symmetry  of  those  heads  which  declaim  against  all  church  music. 


638 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


For  myself,  not  only  from  my  obedience,  but  my  particular  gen¬ 
ius,  I  do  embrace  it;  for  even  that  vulgar  and  tavern  music, 
which  makes  one  man  merry,  another  mad,  strikes  in  me  a  deep 
fit  of  devotion,  and  a  profound  contemplation  of  the  first  com¬ 
poser.  There  is  something  in  it  of  divinity  more  than  the  ear 
discovers:  it  is  an  hieroglyphical  and  shadowed  lesson  of  the 
whole  world,  and  creatures  of  God;  such  a  melody  to  the  ear  as 
the  whole  world  well  understood  would  afford  the  understand¬ 
ing.  In  brief,  it  is  a  sensible  fit  of  that  harmony  which  intel¬ 
lectually  sounds  in  the  ears  of  God.  I  will  not  say  with  Plato, 
the  soul  is  a  harmony,  but  harmonical,  and  has  its  nearest  sym¬ 
pathy  unto  music:  thus  some,  whose  temper  of  body  agrees  and 
humors  the  constitution  of  their  souls,  are  born  poets,  though 
indeed  all  are  naturally  inclined  unto  rhythm.  This  made  Taci¬ 
tus,  in  the  very  first  line  of  his  story,  fall  upon  a  verse,  and 
Cicero,  the  worst  of  poets,  but  declaiming  for  a  poet,  falls  in 
the  very  first  sentence  upon  a  perfect  hexameter.  I  feel  not  in 
me  those  sordid  and  unchristian  desires  of  my  profession;  I  do 
not  secretly  implore  and  wish  for  plagues,  rejoice  at  famines, 
revolve  ephemerides  and  almanacs  in  expectation  of  malignant 
aspects,  fatal  conjunctions,  and  eclipses;  I  rejoice  not  at  unwhole¬ 
some  springs,  or  unseasonable  winters;  my  prayer  goes  with  the 
husbandman’s;  I  desire  everything  in  its  proper  season,  that 
neither  men  nor  the  times  be  put  out  of  temper.  Let  me  be 
sick  myself,  if  sometimes  the  malady  of  my  patient  be  not  a 
disease  unto  me.  I  desire  rather  to  cure  his  infirmities  than  my 
own  necessities:  where  I  do  him  no  good,  methinks  it  is  scarce 
honest  gain;  though  I  confess  it  is  but  the  worthy  salary  of  our 
well-intended  endeavors.  I  am  not  only  ashamed,  but  heartily 
sorry,  that  besides  death,  there  are  diseases  incurable;  yet  not 
for  my  own  sake,  or  that  they  be  beyond  my  art,  but  for  the 
general  cause  and  sake  of  humanity,  whose  common  cause  I  ap¬ 
prehend  as  mine  own.  And  to  speak  more  generally,  those  three 
noble  professions,  which  all  civil  commonwealths  do  honor,  are 
raised  upon  the  fall  of  Adam,  and  are  not  exempt  from  their 
infirmities;  there  are  not  only  diseases  incurable  in  physic,  but 
cases  indissolvable  in  law,  vices  incorrigible  in  divinity.  If  gen¬ 
eral  councils  may  err,  I  do  not  see  why  particular  courts  should 
be  infallible;  their  perfectest  rules  are  raised  upon  the  erroneous 
reasons  of  man,  and  the  laws  of  one  do  but  condemn  the  rules 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


639 


of  another;  as  Aristotle  ofttimes  the  opinions  of  his  predecessors, 
because,  though  agreeable  to  reason,  yet  they  were  not  consonant 
to  his  own  rules  and  to  the  logic  of  his  proper  principles.  Again, 
to  speak  nothing  of  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  whose  cure 
not  only,  but  whose  nature  is  unknown;  I  can  cure  the  gout  or 
stone  in  some,  sooner  than  divinity,  pride,  or  avarice  in  others.  I 
can  cure  vices  by  physic,  when  they  remain  incurable  by  divin¬ 
ity;  and  shall  obey  my  pills,  when  they  contemn  their  precepts.  I 
boast  nothing,  but  plainly  say  we  all  labor  against  our  own  cure; 
for  death  is  the  cure  of  all  diseases.  There  is  no  catholicon  or 
universal  remedy  I  know  but  this,  which,  though  nauseous  to 
queasy  stomachs,  yet  to  prepared  appetites  is  nectar,  and  a  pleas¬ 
ant  potion  of  immortality. 

For  my  conversation,  it  is  like  the  sun’s,  with  all  men,  and 
with  a  friendly  aspect  to  good  and  bad.  Methinks  there  is  no 
man  bad,  and  the  worst,  best;  that  is,  while  they  are  kept  within 
the  circle  of  those  qualities  wherein  they  are  good.  There  is  no 
man’s  mind  of  such  discordant  and  jarring  a  temper,  to  which  a 
tunable  disposition  may  not  strike  a  harmony.  Magnce  virtutes , 
nec  minora  vitia ,  it  is  the  posy  of  the  best  natures,  and  may  be 
inverted  on  the  worst.  There  are  in  the  most  depraved  and 
venomous  dispositions  certain  pieces  that  remain  untouched,  which 
by  an  antiperistasis  become  more  excellent,  or  by  the  excellency 
of  their  antipathies  are  able  to  preserve  themselves  from  the 
contagion  of  their  enemy  vices,  and  persist  entire  beyond  the 
general  corruption.  For  it  is  also  thus  in  nature.  The  greatest 
balsams  do  lie  enveloped  in  the  bodies  of  most  powerful  corro¬ 
sives;  I  say,  moreover,  and  I  ground  upon  experience,  that  poi¬ 
sons  contain  within  themselves  their  own  antidote,  and  that 
which  preserves  them  from  the  venom  of  themselves,  without 
which  they  were  not  deleterious  to  others  only,  but  to  them¬ 
selves  also.  But  it  is  the  corruption  that  I  fear  within  me,  not 
the  contagion  of  commerce  without  me.  It  is  that  unruly  regi¬ 
men  within  me,  that  will  destroy  me;  it  is  I  that  do  infect  myself; 
the  man  without  a  navel  yet  lives  in  me.  I  feel  that  original 
canker  corrode  and  devour  me;  and  therefore  defenda  me  Dios 
de  me  (Lord  deliver  me  from  myself),  is  a  part  of  my  litany, 
and  the  first  voice  of  my  retired  imaginations.  There  is  no  man 
alone,  because  every  man  is  a  microcosm,  and  carries  the  whole 
world  about  him;  nunquam  minus  solus  quam  cum  solus ,  though 
it  be  the  apothegm  of  a  wise  man,  is  yet  true  in  the  mouth  of 


640 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


a  fool;  indeed,  though  in  a  wilderness  a  man  is  never  alone,  not 
only  because  he  is  with  himself  and  his  own  thoughts,  but  be¬ 
cause  he  is  with  the  devil,  who  ever  consorts  with  our  solitude, 
and  is  that  unruly  rebel  that  musters  up  those  disordered  mo¬ 
tions  which  accompany  our  sequestered  imaginations.  And  to 
speak  more  narrowly,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  solitude,  nor  any¬ 
thing  that  can  be  said  to  be  alone  and  by  itself,  but  God,  who  is 
his  own  circle,  and  can  subsist  by  himself;  all  others,  besides 
their  dissimilarity  and  heterogeneous  parts,  which  in  a  manner 
multiply  their  natures,  cannot  subsist  without  the  concourse  of 
God,  and  the  society  of  that  hand  which  doth  uphold  their  na¬ 
tures.  In  brief,  there  can  be  nothing  truly  alone,  and  by  itself, 
which  is  not  truly  one;  and  such  is  only  God;  all  others  do  tran¬ 
scend  a  unity,  and  so  by  consequence  are  many. 

Now  for  my  life,  it  is  a  miracle  of  thirty  years,  which  to  re¬ 
late  were  not  a  history,  but  a  piece  of  poetry,  and  would  sound 
to  common  ears  like  a  fable;  for  the  world,  I  count  it  not  an  inn, 
but  a  hospital;  and  a  place  not  to  live,  but  to  die  in.  The 
world  that  I  regard  is  myself;  it  is  the  microcosm  of  my  own 
frame  that  I  cast  mine  eye  on;  for  the  other,  I  use  it  but  like 
my  globe  and  turn  it  round  sometimes  for  my  recreation.  Men 
that  look  upon  my  outside,  perusing  only  my  condition  and  for¬ 
tunes,  do  err  in  my  altitude,  for  I  am  above  Atlas’s  shoulders. 
The  earth  is  a  point,  not  only  in  respect  of  the  heavens  above 
us,  but  of  that  heavenly  and  celestial  part  within  us.  That  mass 
of  flesh  that  circumscribes  me  limits  not  my  mind;  that  surface 
that  tells  the  heaven  it  hath  an  end  cannot  persuade  me  I  have 
any.  I  take  my  circle  to  be  above  three  hundred  and  sixty. 
Though  the  number  of  the  arc  do  measure  my  body,  it  compre- 
hendeth  not  my  mind.  Whilst  I  study  to  find  how  I  am  a  mi¬ 
crocosm,  or  little  world,  I  find  myself  something  more  than  the 
great.  There  is  surely  a  piece  of  divinity  in  us,  something  that 
was  before  the  elements,  and  owes  no  homage  unto  the  sun.  Na¬ 
ture  tells  me  I  am  the  image  of  God,  as  well  as  Scripture.  He 
that  understands  not  thus  much  hath  not  his  introduction,  or  first 
lesson,  and  is  yet  to  begin  the  alphabet  of  man.  Let  me  not  in¬ 
jure  the  felicity  of  others,  if  I  say  I  am  as  happy  as  any;  Ruat 
cczlum ,  fiat  voluntas  tua ,  salveth  all;  so  that  whatsoever  happens,  it 
is  but  what  our  daily  prayers  desire.  In  brief,  I  am  content,  and 
what  should  Providence  add  more  ?  Surely  this  is  it  we  call  hap¬ 
piness,  and  this  do  I  enjoy;  with  this  I  am  happy  in  a  dream, 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


641 


and  as  content  to  enjoy  a  happiness  in  a  fancy,  as  others  in  a 
more  apparent  truth  and  reality.  There  is  surely  a  nearer  ap¬ 
prehension  of  anything  that  delights  us  in  our  dreams,  than  in 
our  waking  senses.  Without  this  I  were  unhappy,  for  my  awaked 
judgment  discontents  me,  ever  whispering  unto  me  that  I  am 
from  my  friend;  but  my  friendly  dreams  in  night  requite  me, 
and  make  me  think  I  am  within  his  arms.  I  thank  God  for  my 
happy  dreams,  as  I  do  for  my  good  rest,  for  there  is  a  satisfac¬ 
tion  unto  reasonable  desires,  and  such  as  can  be  content  with  a 
fit  of  happiness.  And  surely  it  is  not  a  melancholy  conceit  to 
think  we  are  all  asleep  in  this  world,  and  that  the  conceits  of 
this  life  are  as  mere  dreams  to  those  of  the  next,  as  the  phan¬ 
tasms  of  the  night  to  the  conceits  of  the  day.  There  is  an  equal 
delusion  in  both,  and  the  one  doth  but  seem  to  be  the  emblem 
or  picture  of  the  other.  We  are  somewhat  more  than  ourselves 
in  our  sleeps,  and  the  slumber  of  the  body  seems  to  be  but  the 
waking  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  ligation  of  sense,  but  the  liberty 
of  reason,  and  our  waking  conceptions  do  not  match  the  fancies  of 
our  sleeps.  At  my  nativity  my  ascendant  was  the  watery  sign 
of  Scorpius.  I  was  born  in  the  planetary  hour  of  Saturn,  and  I 
think  I  have  a  piece  of  the  leaden  planet  in  me.  I  am  no  way 
facetious,  nor  disposed  for  the  mirth  and  galliardise  of  company; 
yet  in  one  dream  I  can  compose  a  whole  comedy,  behold  the  ac¬ 
tion,  apprehend  the  jests,  and  laugh  myself  awake  at  the  conceits 
thereof.  Were  my  memory  as  faithful  as  my  reason  is  then 
fruitful,  I  would  never  study  but  in  my  dreams;  and  this  time 
also  would  I  choose  for  my  devotions.  But  our  grosser  memories 
have  then  so  little  hold  of  our  abstracted  understandings  that 
they  forget  the  story,  and  can  only  relate  to  our  awaked  souls  a 
confused  and  broken  tale  of  that  that  hath  passed.  Aristotle, 
who  hath  written  a  singular  tract  of  sleep,  hath  not,  methinks, 
thoroughly  defined  it;  nor  yet  Galen,  though  he  seem  to  have 
corrected  it;  for  those  noctambuloes  and  night  walkers,  though 
in  their  sleep,  do  yet  enjoy  the  action  of  their  senses.  We  must 
therefore  say  that  there  is  something  in  us  that  is  not  in  the 
jurisdiction  of  Morpheus,  and  that  those  abstracted  and  ecstatic 
souls  do  walk  about  in  their  own  corpses  as  spirits  with  the 
bodies  they  assume,  wherein  they  seem  to  hear  and  feel,  though 
indeed  the  organs  are  destitute  of  sense,  and  their  natures  of 
those  faculties  that  should  inform  them.  Thus  it  is  observed 
that  men  sometimes,  upon  the  hour  of  their  departure,  do  speak 
11 — 41 


642 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


and  reason  above  themselves;  for  then  the  soul,  beginning  to  be 
freed  from  the  ligaments  of  the  body,  begins  to  reason  like  her¬ 
self,  and  to  discourse  in  a  strain  above  mortality. 

We  term  sleep  a  death,  and  yet  it  is  waking  that  kills  us  and 
destroys  those  spirits  that  are  the  house  of  life.  It  is  indeed  a 
part  of  life  that  best  expresseth  death;  for  every  man  truly  lives, 
so  long  as  he  acts  his  nature,  or  some  way  makes  good  the  facul¬ 
ties  of  himself:  Themistocles,  therefore,  that  slew  his  soldier  in 
his  sleep,  was  a  merciful  executioner;  it  is  a  kind  of  punishment 
the  mildness  of  no  laws  hath  invented;  I  wonder  the  fancy  of 
Lucan  and  Seneca  did  not  discover  it.  It  is  that  death  by  which 
we  may  be  literally  said  to  die  daily;  a  death  which  Adam  died 
before  his  mortality;  a  death  whereby  we  live  a  middle  and  mod¬ 
erating  point  between  life  and  death;  in  fine,  so  like  death,  I  dare 
not  trust  it  without  my  prayers,  and  a  half  adieu  unto  the  world, 
and  take  my  farewell  in  a  colloquy  with  God. 

The  night  is  come,  like  to  the  day; 

Depart  not  thou,  great  God,  away. 

Let  not  my  sins,  black  as  the  night, 

Eclipse  the  lustre  of  thy  light. 

Keep  still  in  my  horizon;  for  to  me 
The  sun  makes  not  the  day,  but  thee. 

Thou  whose  nature  cannot  sleep, 

On  my  temples  sentry  keep, 

Guard  me  ’gainst  those  watchful  foes, 

Whose  eyes  are  open  while  mine  close. 

Let  no  dreams  my  head  infest, 

But  such  as  Jacob’s  temples  blest. 

While  I  do  rest,  my  soul  advance, 

Make  my  sleep  a  holy  trance; 

That  I  may,  my  rest  being  wrought, 

Awake  into  some  holy  thought; 

And  with  as  active  vigor  run 
My  course,  as  doth  the  nimble  sun. 

Sleep  is  a  death;  O  make  me  try, 

By  sleeping,  what  it  is  to  die; 

And  as  gently  lay  my  head 
On  my  grave,  as  now  my  bed. 

Howe’er  I  rest,  great  God,  let  me 
Awake  again  at  last  with  thee, 

And  thus  assured,  behold  I  lie, 

Securely,  or  to  wake  or  die. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


643 


These  are  my  drowsy  days;  in  vain 
I  do  now  wake  to  sleep  again : 

O  come  that  hour,  when  I  shall  never 
Sleep  again,  but  wake  forever. 

This  is  the  dormitive  I  take  to  bedward;  I  need  no  other 
laudanum  than  this  to  make  me  sleep:  after  which,  I  close  mine 
eyes  in  security,  content  to  take  my  leave  of  the  sun,  and  sleep 
unto  the  Resurrection. 

The  method  I  should  use  in  distributive  justice  I  often  observe 
in  commutative,  and  keep  a  geometrical  proportion  in  both, 
whereby  becoming  equable  to  others,  I  become  unjust  to  myself, 
and  supererogate  in  that  common  principle,  (<  Do  unto  others  as 
thou  wouldst  be  done  unto  thyself.  ®  I  was  not  born  unto  riches, 
neither  is  it,  I  think,  my  star  to  be  wealthy;  or  if  it  were,  the 
freedom  of  my  mind  and  frankness  of  my  disposition  were  able 
to  contradict  and  cross  my  fates.  For  to  me  avarice  seems  not 
so  much  a  vice  as  a  deplorable  piece  of  madness;  to  be  per¬ 
suaded  that  we  are  dead  is  not  so  ridiculous  or  so  many  degrees 
beyond  the  power  of  hellebore  as  this.  The  opinions  of  theory 
and  positions  of  men  are  not  so  void  of  reason  as  their  practiced 
conclusions:  some  have  held  that  snow  is  black,  that  the  earth 
moves,  that  the  soul  is  air,  fire,  water;  but  all  this  is  philosophy, 
and  there  is  no  delirium  if  we  do  but  speculate  the  folly  and  in¬ 
disputable  dotage  of  avarice.  To  that  subterraneous  idol,  and 
god  of  the  earth,  I  do  confess  I  am  an  atheist;  I  cannot  per¬ 
suade  myself  to  honor  what  the  world  adores;  whatsoever  virtue 
its  prepared  substance  may  have  within  my  body,  it  hath  no  in¬ 
fluence  or  operation  without;  I  would  not  entertain  a  base  de¬ 
sign,  or  an  action  that  should  call  me  villain,  for  the  Indies; 
and  for  this  only  do  I  love  and  honor  my  own  soul,  and  have, 
methinks,  two  arms  too  few  to  embrace  myself.  Aristotle  is  too 
severe,  that  will  not  allow  us  to  be  truly  liberal  without  wealth 
and  the  bountiful  hand  of  fortune;  if  this  be  true,  I  must  con¬ 
fess  I  am  charitable  only  in  my  liberal  intentions  and  bountiful 
well-wishes.  But  if  the  example  of  the  mite  be  not  only  an  act 
of  wonder,  but  an  example  of  the  noblest  charity,  surely  poor 
men  may  also  build  hospitals,  and  the  rich  alone  have  not 
erected  cathedrals.  I  have  a  private  method  which  others  ob¬ 
serve  not;  I  take  the  opportunity  of  myself  to  do  good;  I  bor¬ 
row  occasion  of  charity  from  mine  own  necessities,  and  supply 


644 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNS 


the  wants  of  others  when  I  am  in  most  need  myself;  for  it  is  an 
honest  stratagem  to  make  advantage  of  ourselves,  and  so  to  hus¬ 
band  the  acts  of  virtue,  that  where  they  were  defective  in  one 
circumstance  they  may  repay  their  want  and  multiply  their 
goodness  in  another.  I  have  not  Peru  in  my  desires,  but  a  com¬ 
petence  and  ability  to  perform  those  good  works  to  which  he 
hath  inclined  my  nature.  He  is  rich  who  hath  enough  to  be 
charitable ;  and  it  is  hard  to  be  so  poor  that  a  noble  mind  may 
not  find  a  way  to  this  piece  of  goodness.  He  that  giveth  to  the 
poor  lendeth  to  the  Lord ;  there  is  more  rhetoric  in  that  one 
sentence  than  in  a  library  of  sermons;  and,  indeed,  if  those  sen¬ 
tences  were  understood  by  the  reader  with  the  same  emphasis  as 
they  are  delivered  by  the  author,  we  needed  not  those  volumes 
of  instructions,  but  might  be  honest  by  an  epitome.  Upon  this 
motive  only  I  cannot  behold  a  beggar  without  relieving  his  ne¬ 
cessities  with  my  purse,  or  his  soul  with  my  prayers;  these 
scenical  and  accidental  differences  between  us  cannot  make  me 
forget  that  common  and  untouched  part  of  us  both;  there  is  un¬ 
der  these  centoes  and  miserable  outsides,  these  mutilate  and  semi¬ 
bodies,  a  soul  of  the  same  alloy  with  our  own,  whose  genealogy 
is  God’s  as  well  as  ours,  and  is  as  fair  a  way  to  salvation  as 
ourselves.  Statists  that  labor  to  contrive  a  commonwealth  with¬ 
out  poverty  take  away  the  object  of  our  charity,  not  understand¬ 
ing  only  the  commonwealth  of  a  Christian,  but  forgetting  the 
prophecy  of  Christ. 

Now  there  is  another  part  of  charity,  which  is  the  basis  and 
pillar  of  this,  and  that  is  the  love  of  God,  for  whom  we  love  our 
neighbor;  for  this  I  think  charity,  to  love  God  for  himself,  and 
our  neighbor  for  God.  All  that  is  truly  amiable  is  God,  or,  as 
it  were,  a  divided  piece  of  him,  that  retains  a  reflex  or  shadow 
of  himself.  Nor  is  it  strange  that  we  should  place  affection  on 
that  which  is  invisible;  all  that  we  truly  love  is  thus;  what  we 
adore  under  affection  of  our  senses  deserves  not  the  honor  of  so 
pure  a  title.  Thus  we  adore  virtue,  though  to  the  eyes  of  sense 
she  be  invisible :  thus  that  part  of  our  noble  friends  that  we 
love  is  not  that  part  that  we  embrace,  but  that  insensible  part 
that  our  arms  cannot  embrace.  God,  being  all  goodness,  can 
love  nothing  but  himself,  and  the  traduction  of  his  Holy  Spirit. 
Let  us  call  to  assize  the  loves  of  our  parents,  the  affection  of 
our  wives  and  children,  and  they  are  all  dumb  shows  and  dreams 
without  reality,  truth,  or  constancy:  for  first,  there  is  a  strong 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE 


645 


bond  of  affection  between  ns  and  our  parents;  yet  how  easily 
dissolved!  We  betake  ourselves  to  a  woman,  forget  our  mother 
in  a  wife,  and  the  womb  that  bare  us  in  that  that  shall  bear  our 
image:  this  woman  blessing  us  with  children,  our  affection  leaves 
the  level  it  held  before,  and  sinks  from  our  bed  unto  our  issue 
and  picture  of  posterity,  where  affection  holds  no  steady  man¬ 
sion.  They,  growing  up  in  years,  desire  our  ends;  or  applying 
themselves  to  a  woman,  take  a  lawful  way  to  love  another  better 
than  ourselves.  Thus  I  perceive  a  man  may  be  buried  alive, 
and  behold  his  grave  in  his  own  issue. 

I  conclude  therefore  and  say  there  is  no  happiness  under  (or 
as  Copernicus  will  have  it,  above)  the  sun,  nor  any  crambe  in 
that  repeated  verity  and  burthen  of  all  the  wisdom  of  Solomon, 
(<  All  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  *  There  is  no  felicity  in 
that  the  world  adores.  Aristotle,  whilst  he  labors  to  refute  the 
ideas  of  Plato,  falls  upon  one  himself;  for  his  summum  bonum  is 
a  chimera,  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  his  felicity.  That 
wherein  God  himself  is  happy,  the  holy  angels  are  happy,  in 
whose  defect  the  devils  are  unhappy;  that  dare  I  call  happiness: 
whatsoever  conduceth  unto  this  may  with  an  easy  metaphor  de¬ 
serve  the  name;  whatsoever  else  the  world  terms  happiness  is 
to  me  a  story  out  of  Pliny,  a  tale  of  Boccaccio  or  Malaspini;  an 
apparition  or  neat  delusion,  wherein  there  is  no  more  of  happi¬ 
ness  than  the  name.  Bless  me  in  this  life  with  but  peace  of  my 
conscience,  command  of  my  affections,  the  love  of  thyself  and 
my  dearest  friends,  and  I  shall  be  happy  enough  to  pity  Caesar. 
These  are,  O  Lord,  the  humble  desires  of  my  most  reasonable 
ambition,  and  all  I  dare  call  happiness  on  earth;  wherein  I  set 
no  rule  or  limit  to  thy  hand  of  Providence;  dispose  of  me  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  wisdom  of  thy  pleasure.  Thy  will  be  done,  though 
in  my  own  undoing. 


Complete.  From  the  text  of  Morley. 


646 


ROBERT  BROWNING 

(1812-1889) 


.rowning  wrote  few  essays,  and  the  prose  style  he  illustrates 
in  them  is  anything  but  commendable,  abounding,  as  it  does, 
in  inversions  and  parenthetical  clauses  which  compel  the 
reader  to  hard  thinking.  But  these  are  the  faults  of  genius, — short¬ 
comings  resulting  from  a  lack  of  the  patience  necessary  to  find 
for  an  intellect  of  supreme  activity  a  mode  to  express  itself  ade¬ 
quately.  If  Browning’s  sentences  are  gnarled,  they  have  that  which 
justifies  their  ruggedness  —  thought  so  profound  and  yet  so  strong, 
that  language  is  scarcely  fit  for  the  attempt  to  express  it.  Brown¬ 
ing  does  express  it  however.  Every  sentence,  every  clause,  every 
word  of  his  prose  has  in  it  some  suggestion  of  that  deep  intellectual 
and  spiritual  experience  in  which  he  so  far  transcended  ordinary 
human  nature. 

He  was  born  at  Camberwell,  England,  May  7th,  1812,  and  was 
educated  at  London  University.  In  1846  he  married  Elizabeth  Bar¬ 
rett,  who  was  greatly  his  superior  in  the  faculty  of  lyrical  expres¬ 
sion;  but  if  he  wrote  nothing  as  musical  as  her  best  lyrics,  he  greatly 
surpassed  her  and  every  other  poet  of  his  generation  in  depth  of 
thought.  Much  of  his  life  was  spent  in  Italy,  and  it  was  at  Venice 
that  he  died,  December  12th,  1889. 


SHELLEY’S  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 


Had  Shelley  lived  he  would  have  finally  ranged  himself  with 
the  Christians;  his  very  instinct  for  helping  the  weaker 
side  (if  numbers  make  strength),  his  very  (<hate  of  hate,” 
which  at  first  mistranslated  itself  into  delirious  Queen  Mab  notes 
and  the  like,  would  have  got  clearer  sighted  by  exercise.  The  pre¬ 
liminary  step  to  following  Christ  is  the  leaving  the  dead  to  bury 
their  dead  —  not  clamoring  on  his  doctrine  for  an  especial  solu¬ 
tion  of  difficulties  which  are  referable  to  the  general  problem  of 
the  universe.  Already  he  had  attained  to  a  profession  of  <(  a 
worship  to  the  Spirit  of  Good  within,  which  requires  (before  it 
sends  that  inspiration  forth,  which  impresses  its  likeness  upon  all 


ROBERT  BROWNING 


647 


it  creates)  devoted  and  disinterested  homage,”  as  Coleridge  says, 
—  and  Paul  likewise.  And  we  find  in  one  of  his  last  exquisite 
fragments,  avowedly  a  record  of  one  of  his  own  mornings  and  its 
experience,  as  it  dawned  on  him  at  his  soul  and  body’s  nest  in 
his  boat  on  the  Serchio,  that  as  surely  as 

(<  The  stars  burnt  out  in  the  pale  blue  air. 

And  the  thin  white  moon  lay  withering  there  — 

Day  had  kindled  the  dewy  woods. 

And  the  rocks  above,  and  the  stream  below, 

And  the  vapors  in  their  multitudes, 

And  the  Apennine’s  shroud  of  summer  snow  — 

Day  had  awakened  all  things  that  be;” 

just  so  surely  he  tells  us  (stepping  forward  from  this  delicious 
dance  music,  choragus-like,  into  the  grander  measure  befitting  the 
final  enunciation), 

(<  All  rose  to  do  the  task  He  set  to  each, 

Who  shaped  us  to  His  ends  and  not  our  own; 

The  million  rose  to  learn,  and  One  to  teach 
What  none  yet  ever  knew  or  can  be  known.” 

No  more  difference  than  this,  from  David’s  pregnant  conclu¬ 
sion  so  long  ago! 

Meantime,  as  I  call  Shelley  a  moral  man,  because  he  was  true, 
simple-hearted,  and  brave,  and  because  what  he  acted  corresponded 
to  what  he  knew,  so  I  call  him  a  man  of  religious  mind,  because 
every  audacious  negative  cast  up  by  him  against  the  Divine  was 
interpenetrated  with  a  mood  of  reverence  and  adoration, —  and 
because  I  find  him  everywhere  taking  for  granted  some  of  the 
capital  dogmas  of  Christianity,  while  most  vehemently  denying 
their  historical  basement.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  an  efficacious 
knowledge  of  and  belief  in  the  politics  of  Junius,  or  the  poetry 
of  Rowley,  though  a  man  should  at  the  same  time  dispute  the 
title  of  Chatterton  to  the  one,  and  consider  the  author  of  the 
other,  as  Byron  wittily  did,  (<  really,  truly,  nobody  at  all.  ”  There 
is  even  such  a  thing,  we  come  to  learn  wonderingly  in  these  very 
letters,  as  a  profound  sensibility  and  adaptitude  for  art,  while  the 
science  of  the  percipient  is  so  little  advanced  as  to  admit  of  his 
stronger  admiration  for  Guido  (and  Carlo  Dolce ! )  than  for  Michael 
Angelo.  A  Divine  Being  has  himself  said  that  <(  a  word  against 


64S 


ROBERT  BROWNING 


the  Son  of  Man  shall  be  forgiven  to  a  man,®  while  “a  word 
against  the  Spirit  of  God”  (implying  a  general  deliberate  prefer¬ 
ence  of  perceived  evil  to  perceived  good)  <(  shall  not  be  forgiven 
to  a  man.”  Also,  in  religion,  one  earnest  and  unextorted  asser¬ 
tion  of  belief  should  outweigh,  as  a  matter  of  testimony,  many 
assertions  of  unbelief.  The  fact  that  there  is  a  gold  region  is 
established  by  the  finding  of  one  lump,  though  you  miss  the  vein 
never  so  often. 

He  died  before  his  youth  ended.  In  taking  the  measure  of 
him  as  a  man,  he  must  be  considered  on  the  whole  and  at  his 
ultimate  spiritual  stature,  and  not  be  judged  of  at  the  immaturity 
and  by  the  mistakes  of  ten  years  before;  that,  indeed,  would  be 
to  judge  of  the  author  of  “Julian  and  Maddalo  ”  by  “Zastrozzi.” 
Let  the  whole  truth  be  told  of  his  worst  mistake.  I  believe,  for 
my  own  part,  that  if  anything  could  now  shame  or  grieve  Shelley, 
it  would  be  an  attempt  to  vindicate  him  at  the  expense  of  an¬ 
other. 

In  forming  a  judgment,  I  would,  however,  press  on  the  reader 
the  simple  justice  of  considering  tenderly  his  constitution  of  body 
as  well  as  mind,  and  how  unfavorable  it  was  to  the  steady  sym¬ 
metries  of  conventional  life;  the  body,  in  the  torture  of  incurable 
disease,  refusing  to  give  repose  to  the  bewildered  soul,  tossing  in 
its  hot  fever  of  the  fancy, —  and  the  laudanum  bottle  making  but 
a  perilous  and  pitiful  truce  between  these  two.  He  was  constantly 
subject  to  “that  state  of  mind”  (I  quote  his  own  note  to  “Hellas”) 
“  in  which  ideas  may  be  supposed  to  assume  the  force  of  sensa¬ 
tion,  through  the  confusion  of  thought  with  the  object  of  thought, 
and  excess  of  passion  animating  the  creations  of  the  imagination  ” ; 
in  other  words,  he  was  liable  to  remarkable  delusions  and  hallu¬ 
cinations.  The  nocturnal  attack  in  Wales,  for  instance,  was  as¬ 
suredly  a  delusion;  and  I  venture  to  express  my  own  conviction,, 
derived  from  a  little  attention  to  the  circumstances  of  either  story, 
that  the  idea  of  the  enamored  lady  following  him  to  Naples, 
and  of  the  *  man  in  the  cloak  ”  who  struck  him  at  the  Pisan 
post  office,  were  equally  illusory, —  the  mere  projection,  in  fact, 
from  himself,  of  the  image  of  his  own  love  and  hate. 

“  To  thirst  and  find  no  fill  —  to  wail  and  wander 
With  short,  unsteady  steps  —  to  pause  and  ponder  — 

To  feel  the  blood  run  through  the  veins  and  tingle 
When  busy  thought  and  blind  sensation  mingle, — 


ROBERT  BROWNING 


649 


To  nurse  the  image  of  unfelt  caresses 
Till  dim  imagination  just  possesses 
The  half-created  shadow” — 

of  unfelt  caresses, —  and  of  unfelt  blows  as  well;  to  such  condi¬ 
tions  was  his  genius  subject.  It  was  not  at  Rome  only  (where 
he  heard  a  mystic  voice  exclaiming,  (<  Cenci,  Cenci,”  in  reference 
to  the  tragic  theme  which  occupied  him  at  the  time), —  it  was 
not  at  Rome  only  that  he  mistook  the  cry  of  <(  old  rags.”  The 
habit  of  somnambulism  is  said  to  have  extended  to  the  very  last 
days  of  his  life. 

Let  me  conclude  with  a  thought  of  Shelley  as  a  poet.  In  the 
hierarchy  of  creative  minds  it  is  the  presence  of  the  highest  fac¬ 
ulty  that  gives  first  rank  in  virtue  of  its  kind,  not  degree;  no 
pretension  of  a  lower  nature,  whatever  the  completeness  of  de¬ 
velopment  or  variety  of  effect,  impeding  the  precedency  of  the 
rarer  endowment  though  only  in  the  germ.  The  contrary  is 
sometimes  maintained;  it  is  attempted  to  make  the  lower  gifts 
(which  are  potentially  included  in  the  higher  faculty)  of  inde¬ 
pendent  value,  and  equal  to  some  exercise  of  the  special  function. 
For  instance,  should  not  a  poet  possess  common  sense  ?  Then 
the  possession  of  abundant  common  sense  implies  a  step  towards 
becoming  a  poet.  Yes;  such  a  step  as  the  lapidary’s,  when, 
strong  in  the  fact  of  carbon  entering  largely  into  the  composi¬ 
tion  of  the  diamond,  he  heaps  up  a  sack  of  charcoal  in  order  to 
compete  with  the  Koh-i-noor.  I  pass  at  once,  therefore,  from 
Shelley’s  minor  excellences  to  his  noblest  and  predominating 
characteristic. 

This  I  call  his  simultaneous  perception  of  Power  and  Love  in 
the  absolute,  and  of  Beauty  and  Good  in  the  concrete,  while  he 
throws,  from  his  poet’s  station  between  both,  swifter,  subtler,  and 
more  numerous  films  for  the  connection  of  each  with  each,  than 
have  been  thrown  by  any  modern  artificer  of  whom  I  have  knowl¬ 
edge;  proving  how,  as  he  says, 

(<  The  spirit  of  the  worm  within  the  sod. 

In  love  and  worship  blends  itself  with  God.” 

I  would  rather  consider  Shelley’s  poetry  as  a  sublime  frag¬ 
mentary  essay  towards  a  presentiment  of  the  correspondency  of 
the  universe  to  Deity,  of  the  natural  to  the  spiritual,  and  of  the 
actual  to  the  ideal,  than  I  would  isolate  and  separately  appraise 


^5° 


ROBERT  BROWNING 


the  worth  of  many  detachable  portions  which  might  be  acknowl¬ 
edged  as  utterly  perfect  in  a  lower  moral  point  of  view,  under 
the  mere  conditions  of  art.  It  would  be  easy  to  take  my  stand 
on  successful  instances  of  objectivity  in  Shelley;  there  is  the  un¬ 
rivaled  ^Cenci*;  there  is  the  (<  Julian  and  Maddalo  ®  too;  there 
is  the  magnificent  (<  Ode  to  Naples. *  Why  not  regard,  it  may  be 
said,  the  less  organized  matter  as  the  radiant  elemental  foam  and 
solution,  out  of  which  would  have  been  evolved,  eventually,  crea¬ 
tions  as  perfect  even  as  those?  But  I  prefer  to  look  for  the 
highest  attainment,  not  simply  the  high, —  and  seeing  it,  I  hold 
by  it.  There  is  surely  enough  of  the  work  <(  Shelley  *  to  be  known 
enduringly  among  men,  and,  I  believe,  to  be  accepted  of  God  as 
human  work  may;  and  around  the  imperfect  proportions  of  such, 
the  most  elaborated  productions  of  ordinary  art  must  arrange  them¬ 
selves  as  inferior  illustrations. 

From  an  essay  on  Shelley  published  by  the 
Shelley  Society,  London,  1888. 


FERDINAND  BRUNETIERE 

(1849-) 


is  editor  of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Ferdinand  Brune- 
tiere  is  ex  officio  chief  of  French  literary  critics.  In  style 
of  expression  and  habits  of  thought  he  approximates  Matthew 
Arnold  more  than  he  does  Taine.  He  is  self-controlled  always,  and 
at  times  almost  severe,  with  more  of  Attic  plainness  than  we  would 
look  for  in  a  master  of  all  the  possibilities  of  so  flexible  and  rich 
a  language  as  French.  He  was  born  at  Toulon,  July  19th,  1849,  and 
was  educated  at  Marseilles  and  Paris.  In  1875  he  joined  the  staff 
of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  the  leading  critical  review  of  France, 
and  his  merit  as  a  writer  and  scholar  made  him  its  editor  in  chief. 
The  first  two  series  of  his  (<  Critical  Studies ®  were  crowned  by  the 
French  Academy  to  which  he  was  elected  in  1893.  He  is  a  member 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor  also.  Among  his  works  are  (<  Critical  Studies 
of  French  Literature,®  (<  Questions  of  Criticism,®  (<The  Evolution  of 
Lyric  Poetry,®  and  many  essays  as  yet  uncollected.  He  is  an  oppo¬ 
nent  of  materialism  in  literature. 


THE  ESSENTIAL  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

To  attempt  to  express  and  to  sum  up  in  a  word  the  essential 
characteristic  of  a  great  literature,  so  varied  and  so  rich  as 
the  French,  which  dates  back  eight  or  nine  hundred  years, 
seems  at  first  sight  a  rash,  imprudent,  and  altogether  chimerical 
undertaking.  What  connection  can  be  discovered  between  a  ro¬ 
mance  of  the  Round  Table,  such  as  <(  Le  Chevalier  au  Lion,®  by 
Crestien  de  Troyes,  for  instance,  and  <(  Le  Maitre  de  Forges,® 
by  M.  Georges  Ohnet,  or  <(  Doit-on  le  Dire,®  or  <(  La  Cagnotte,®  or 
any  other  play  you  please,  by  Eugene  Labiche,  or  Edmond  Gon- 
dinet  ?  Do  not  the  authors,  their  subjects,  their  language,  the 
times  and  the  places  in  which  they  lived,  all  differ  one  from  an¬ 
other  ?  And  if,  in  order  to  determine  the  essential  characteristic 
of  a  literature,  we  begin  by  eliminating  from  its  history  all  di¬ 
versifying  elements,  what  an  insignificant  <(  precipitate,® — what 


652 


FERDINAND  BRUNETIERE 


literary  or  even  historic  fact  is  likely  to  be  left,  and  what  shall 
we,  who  speciously  pretended  to  characterize  it,  have  done  but 
attenuate  the  substance  of  our  observations  to  the  vanishing 
point  ? 

This  objection  can  easily  be  met.  In  the  first  place,  even  if 
it  is  not  an  absolute  mathematical  truth,  verifiable  at  any  given 
time,  that  a  great  literature  is  the  complete  expression  of  the 
genius  of  a  race,  and  its  annals  the  faithful  summary  of  the  whole 
history  of  a  civilization,  the  contrary  is  still  less  true:  and  what¬ 
ever  differences  an  interval  of  six  or  seven  hundred  years — a 
long  period  in  the  life  of  a  nation  —  may  have  effected  between 
a  trouvere  of  the  twelfth  century  and  a  playwright  or  novelist  of 
the  Third  Republic,  yet,  as  they  are  both  French,  there  must 
necessarily  exist  some  relation  between  them.  Observe  again, 
how  in  this  Europe  of  ours,  in  which  so  many  different  races, 
alien  and  hostile  one  to  another,  have  been  everywhere  clashing 
and  fighting  and  cutting  one  another’s  throats,  mutual  intercourse 
and  understandings  have  been  steadily  on  the  increase.  It  was 
their  literature  that  gave  the  great  modern  nationalities  a  point 
of  union  and  concentration,  through  which  they  became  conscious 
of  themselves.  Would  united  Italy  exist  if  there  had  been  nothing 
in  common  between  Dante  and  Alfieri  ?  Would  Germany,  if  there 
had  not  been  something  of  Luther  in  the  soul  of  every  German  ? 
And  what  finally  justifies  an  inquiry  into  the  essential  character¬ 
istic  of  a  literature  is  the  flood  of  light  which  this  characteristic, 
once  defined,  throws  upon  the  innermost  history  of  that  litera¬ 
ture,  enabling  us  to  understand  the  slow  succession  of  ele¬ 
ments  that  have  contributed  to  the  creation  of  <(the  souls  of 
nations. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  the  essential  characteristic  of  the 
Italian  is  to  be  what  I  may  call  an  artistic  literature.  This  char¬ 
acteristic  alone  would  at  once  differentiate  it  from  all  other  mod¬ 
ern  literatures — French  or  German,  Spanish  or  English.  These 
latter  are  certainly  not  deficient  in  works  of  art,  but  none  of 
them,  so  far  as  I  know,  makes  art  its  chief  aim;  nor  do  their 
authors,  like  Ariosto  or  Tasso,  propose,  as  their  sole  aim  and  ob¬ 
ject,  to  realize  some  purely  poetic  fantasy  or  dream  of  beauty. 
The  close  affinities  which  have  always  connected  the  literature  of 
Italy  with  the  other  arts,  especially  with  painting  and  music,  are 
included  in  the  enunciation  of  this  characteristic.  There  is  some¬ 
thing  of  Orcagna  and  of  Fra  Angelico  in  the  <(  Divina  Com- 


FERDINAND  BRUNETIERE 


653 


media  ®;  and  when  we  read  the  (<  Jerusalem ®  or  the  (<  Aminta, * 
does  it  not  seem  as  though  the  transformation  from  the  epic  to 
the  grand  opera  were  taking  place  before  our  very  eyes  ?  This 
artistic  character  suffices  also  to  explain  the  preponderating  influ¬ 
ence  of  Italian  literature  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  The 
French,  during  the  reigns  of  Francis  I.  and  Henry  II.,  and  the 
English  in  Henry  VIII. ’s  and  Elizabeth’s  time,  owed  their  first 
sensation  of  art  to  the  Italians.  The  idea  of  the  power  of  art,  if 
it  does  not  sum  up  the  whole  Renaissance,  constitutes  perhaps 
its  most  important  feature.  And  who  cannot  perceive  the  inti¬ 
mate  connection  between  this  conception  of  a  purely  artistic  lit¬ 
erature  and  what  the  Italians  have  termed  virtk ,  which  certainly 
does  not  mean  (<  virtue ®  (it  may  possess  some  of  that  quality, 
though  the  reverse  has  often  been  the  case),  but  which  is,  in 
terms  of  logic,  the  genus  of  which  <(  virtuosity  ®  is  only  a  species  ? 
Who  does  not  see  in  what  way  the  definition  of  the  essential 
characteristic  of  a  literature  leads  by  easy  steps  to  a  knowledge 
of  the  soul  of  a  people  and  a  race  ? 

To  take  another  example.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  essential 
characteristic  of  the  Spanish  is  to  be  a  chivalrous  literature.  Are 
not  all  its  annals  illuminated  by  this  definition  as  by  a  flash  of 
light  ?  We  grasp  immediately  the  relationship  uniting  works  so 
different  as  the  epic  legends  and  songs  of  the  <(  Romancero  * ;  the 
stories  of  adventure  and  amorous  pastorals  in  the  style  of  the 
^Amadis®  or  the  (<  Diana ®  of  Montemayor;  the  dramas  of  Cal¬ 
deron  and  Lope  de  Vega,  such  as  the  <(  Physician  of  His  Honor,® 
or  (<  Mudarra  the  Bastard ® ;  and  mystic  treatises  and  picaresque 
romances  after  the  manner  of  the  <(  Castle  of  the  Soul ®  and 
(<  Lazarillo  de  Tormes.®  We  recognize  in  all  these  the  family 
features,  the  hereditary  something  which  bears  eternal  witness 
to  their  common  origin,  namely,  that  Castilian  chivalry,  which,  in 
its  sometimes  sublime  and  sometimes  grotesque  exaggeration, 
seems  according  to  occasion  to  lead  indifferently  to  the  extremes 
of  devotion  or  folly.  Then  read  (<  Don  Quixote.®  .  .  .  If  in 
this  political  and  financial,  industrial,  utilitarian,  and  positivist 
Europe,  we  have  not  yet  quite  lost  the  sense  of  the  chivalrous, 
we  owe  it  to  the  influence  of  Spanish  literature.  It  could  easily 
be  proved  that  Spain  has  saved  and  preserved  for  us  whatever 
of  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  deserved  perchance  not  utterly 
to  perish.  And  who  will  say  that  it  is  useless  to  take  cognizance 
of  this  —  useless,  I  mean,  for  a  more  accurate  knowledge,  for  a 


<>54 


FERDINAND  BRUNETI^RE 


more  intimate  understanding  of  Spanish  literature,  of  its  role  in 
history,  and  of  the  genius  of  Spain  herself  ? 

The  essential  characteristic  of  French  literature  is  more  diffi¬ 
cult  to  determine;  not,  I  need  scarcely  say,  because  our  national 
literature  is  more  original  than  the  others,  or  richer  in  master¬ 
pieces,  or  more  resplendent  with  great  names.  Nothing  could  be 
more  impertinent  than  to  urge  such  a  pretension  —  nothing  more 
ridiculous  than  to  believe  it.  If  the  Spaniards  have  not  had  a 
Voltaire,  nor  the  Italians  a  Molibre,  we  French  have  not  had 
either  a  Dante  or  a  Cervantes.  But  it  may  be  said  that  the 
French  is  certainly  the  richest  of  all  modern  literatures.  It  is 
also  the  oldest;  and  we  may  here  be  permitted  to  recall  what 
Dante,  with  whom  Italian  literature  properly  begins,  and  Chaucer, 
whose  (<  Canterbury  Tales  ”  may  be  said  to  have  inaugurated  Eng¬ 
lish  literature,  owed,  the  one  to  our  troubadours  and  the  other  to 
the  more  or  less  anonymous  authors  of  our  old  fabliaux.  Again, 
has  not  French  literature  been  the  most  ready  in  its  recognition 
and  welcome  of  others  ?  Has  it  not  always  exhibited  the  keenest 
curiosity  about  foreign  literatures;  and  has  it  not  been  most 
richly  and  liberally  inspired  by  them  ?  Is  there  any  that  has 
showed  less  scruple  in  converting  the  Italian  and  Spanish  novels 
<(  into  blood  and  nutriment ”  for  its  own  purpose  ?  Ronsard  is 
almost  an  Italian  poet  when  he  sings  of  his  Cassandre,  his  Marie, 
his  H61ene,  his  (<  divers  loves,  ®  with  metaphors  borrowed  from 
Petrarch  and  Bembo.  And  is  not  Corneille  himself,  in  spite  of 
some  Norman  attributes,  a  kind  of  Spanish  dramatist  ?  When  he 
does  not  derive  his  inspiration  from  Alarcon  or  Guillen  de  Castro, 
he  seeks  it  in  Seneca  or  Lucan,  who  were  both  natives  of  Cor¬ 
dova.  We  have  prose  writers,  too,  like  Diderot,  about  whom  it  is 
still  a  moot  point,  after  the  lapse  of  fully  one  hundred  years, 
whether  he  was  the  most  German  or  the  most  English  of  our 
Champenois.  Why,  if  we  are  not  careful,  very  soon  no  one  at 
Paris  will  read  any  but  Russian  novelists,  such  as  Goncharoff  or 
Shtchedrin,  or  play  any  but  Scandinavian  melodramas,  like  <(The 
Lady  of  the  Sea”  or  <(  The  Wild  Duck.”  I  may  add  that,  while 
French  literature  is  international  or  cosmopolitan  in  this  sense, 
it  is  still  more  so  in  that  it  can  claim  to  have  attracted  more 
foreigners  than  any  other.  Thus  Italians,  such  as  Brunetto  La- 
tini,  the  master  of  Dante,  down  to  Galiani,  the  friend  of  our 
encyclopedists;  Englishmen,  like  Hamilton,  Chesterfield,  and  Wal¬ 
pole;  and  Germans,  like  Leibnitz  and  Frederick  the  Great,  all 


FERDINAND  BRUNETIERE 


655 


fell  beneath  its  fascination.  No  doubt  these  circumstances  com¬ 
bine  to  diversify  our  literature,  but  they  also  render  it  exceed¬ 
ingly  difficult  to  characterize  in  one  word. 

If,  however,  it  were  to  be  said  that  over  and  above  every¬ 
thing  else,  even  above  those  qualities  of  order  and  clearness,  logic 
and  precision,  elegance  and  politeness,  which  have  almost  become 
the  crambe  repetita  of  criticism  —  if  it  were  to  be  said  that  the 
French  is  an  essentially  sociable  or  social  literature,  the  definition 
would  not  perhaps  express  the  entire  truth,  but  it  would  not  be 
much  in  error.  From  Crestien  de  Troyes,  whom  I  mentioned 
above,  down  to  M.  Frangois  Coppee,  the  author  of  the  <(  Humbles 
and  the  (<  Intimites, ®  scarcely  any  French  writer  has  written 
either  in  prose  or  in  verse,  except  with  a  view  to  influence  society. 
In  the  expression  of  their  thoughts  they  always  consider  the  pub¬ 
lic  to  whom  they  are  addressing  themselves,  and  consequently 
they  have  never  differentiated  the  art  of  writing  from  that  of 
pleasing,  persuading,  or  convincing.  No  doctrine  was  ever  more 
opposed  to  the  practice  of  our  great  writers  than  that  of  <(  art  for 
art’s  sake  * ;  and  in  this  connection  I  will  quote  a  fine  passage  of 
Bossuet.  (<  The  poets  of  Greece, ®  he  says,  <(  who  were  read  by 
the  common  folk  afforded  them  instruction  even  more  than  en¬ 
tertainment.  The  most  renowned  of  conquerors  regarded  Homer 
as  a  master  in  the  art  of  good  government.  That  great  poet 
likewise  inculcated  the  virtue  of  obedience  and  good  citizenship. 
He,  and  many  other  poets,  whose  works,  though  yielding  pleas¬ 
ure,  are  none  the  less  of  serious  import,  celebrate  those  arts 
alone  which  are  useful  to  human  life.  They  aspire  only  to 
further  the  public  weal,  the  good  of  their  country  and  of  society, 
and  that  admirable  ( civility }  which  we  have  already  explained.  ® 
Why  should  we  not  believe  that  in  thus  defining  Greek  poetry  — 
which  he  has  no  doubt  regarded  from  a  rather  ideal  standpoint, 
and  in  which  he  has  at  any  rate  excluded  from  consideration 
some  of  Aristophanes’  comedies,  some  epigrams  of  the  Anthology 
—  Bossuet  was  defining  his  own  literary  ideal  ?  Certainly  this 
criticism  of  Aeschylus  or  Sophocles,  the  authors  of  the  <(  Persae  * 
and  the  <(  Antigone,  ®  holds  perhaps  even  more  true  of  Corneille 
or  Voltaire,  the  authors  of  (<  Les  Horaces  }>  and  a  Zaire®;  and,  if 
there  were  still  room  to  doubt  that  the  desire  of  (<  celebrating 
the  arts  which  are  useful  to  human  life  ®  is  really  the  guiding 
spirit  of  French  literature,  I  should  be  convinced  by  the  number 
and  diversity  of  facts  in  the  history  of  French  literature  which, 


6  56 


FERDINAND  BRUNETI&RE 


it  will  be  seen,  this  theory  explains,  and  indeed  can  alone  ex¬ 
plain.  .  .  . 

The  social  characteristic  is  so  inherent,  innate,  and  completely 
adequate  as  a  definition  of  French  literature,  that  it  explains  its 
defects  no  less  than  its  qualities.  The  long  inferiority  of  our 
lyric  poetry  is  an  excellent  instance.  If  the  Pleiad  miscarried  of 
old  in  its  generous  enterprise  —  if  Ronsard  and  his  friends  only 
left  behind  them  from  a  literary  standpoint  an  equivocal  reputa¬ 
tion,  which  is  continually  being  assailed  —  if,  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty  or  three  hundred  years,  up  to  the  appearance  of  Lamartine 
and  Hugo,  there  was  nothing  more  empty,  more  cold,  and  more 
false  than  a  French  ode  or  elegy,  it  is  absurd  to  reproach  Boi- 
leau  or  Malherbe,  as  people  do,  for  what  is  solely  due  to  force  of 
circumstances.  And  the  reason  of  it  is  that,  by  compelling  liter¬ 
ature  to  fulfill  a  social  function,  properly  speaking,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  by  requiring  the  poet  to  subordinate  his  way  of  think¬ 
ing  and  feeling  to  the  common  way  of  thinking  and  feeling,  and 
by  denying  him  the  right  to  allow  his  own  personality  to  appear 
in  or  to  inform  his  work,  the  living  sources  of  lyrism  were  nec¬ 
essarily  dammed  or  dried  up.  French  literature  has  thus  paid 
for  its  superiority  in  the  <(  common  w  kinds  by  its  too  unmistaka¬ 
ble  inferiority  in  the  personal  kinds  of  art.  For,  no  sooner  was 
accessibility  to  everybody  the  object  aimed  at,  than  it  became  at 
once  necessary  to  restrain  the  expression  of  feelings  —  I  do  not 
mean  the  rarer  or  the  more  exceptional,  but  the  too  personal 
and  individual  feelings.  Similarly,  our  writers  had  to  sacrifice 
all  the  peculiar  and  intimate  feeling  that  local  detail  lends  to  the 
expression  of  general  sentiments,  through  fear  of  including  in 
the  analysis  or  description  elements  that  might  not  be  true  of 
every  time  and  every  place.  Thus  the  predominance  of  the 
social  characteristic  over  all  others  reduced  the  manifestation  of 
the  poet’s  personality  to  the  modicum  allowed  in  Horace’s  pro- 
prie  communia  dicere ,  and  although  we  have  had  more  than  one 
Aeschylus  and  Sophocles,  more  than  one  Cicero  and  Horace,  we 
have  had  no  Pindar,  nor  even  a  Petrarch  or  a  Tasso.  ...  It 
would  be  more  difficult  to  say  why  we  have  not  had  either  a 
Homer  or  a  Dante,  an  Ariosto  or  a  Milton. 

Is  that,  perhaps,  why  French  literature  has  been  sometimes 
blamed  for  lack  of  depth  and  originality?  We  will  accept  the 
reproach,  seeing  therein  but  one  more  proof  of  the  eminently 
social  character  of  our  literature,  without  inquiring,  in  this  con- 


FERDINAND  BRUNETIERE 


657 


nection,  whether  some  of  our  accusers  may  not  have  confounded 
depth  with  obscurity;  or  whether,  again,  our  great  writers  may 
not  have  sometimes  indulged  in  the  courtier-like  sprightliness  of 
men  of  the  world  when  they  wished  to  express  profound  truths 
in  lucid  language.  Thus,  few  of  our  writers  have  examined  the 
problem  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  or  the  identity  of  contra¬ 
dictories,  because  few  writers  have  attached  any  interest  to  it 
outside  the  schools.  However  it  may  be  with  the  categories  of 
the  understanding  or  the  modes  of  thought,  we  in  France  have 
decided  that  social  life  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  the  temporification  of  space  or  the  spatialization  of  time. 
We  have  likewise  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  as  the  questions 
of  religious  toleration  or  popular  sovereignty  have  only  a  very 
remote  connection  with  that  of  knowing  <(  how  the  Ego  and  the 
Non- Ego,  posited  in  the  Ego  by  the  Ego,  limit  one  another  re¬ 
ciprocally, a  true  philosopher  might  do  well  to  examine  the 
latter  question  eii  passant,  but  should  by  no  means  become  so 
deeply  absorbed  in  it  as  to  forget  the  first  two.  Further,  it 
seems  to  us  that  if,  before  dealing  with  practical  questions,  we 
have  to  wait  for  the  elucidation  of  the  deeper  problems,  which 
definition  cannot  solve,  and  which  turn  upon  the  unknowable,  we 
may  have  to  wait  a  long  time:  — 

(<  Vivendi  qui  recte  prorogat  horam, 

Rusticus  expectat  dum  defiuat  amnis :  at  ille 
Labitur ,  et  labetur  in  omne  volubilis  cevumd ) 

Let  us,  therefore,  organize  social  life,  to  begin  with.  We  may 
then,  if  there  is  time,  inquire  into  its  metaphysical  basis.  Is  not 
this  the  visible  and  actual  order  of  phenomena  ?  The  German 
metaphysics  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  only  made  possible 
by  the  French  literature  of  the  eighteenth.  French  literature,  in 
fact,  has  only  lacked  depth  through  a  superabundance,  as  it  were, 
of  practical  spirit.  Kant  is  not  more  profound  than  Pascal,  nor 
Fichte  than  Rousseau.  The  sole  distinction  lies  in  the  fact  that 
Fichte  and  Kant  chose  to  treat  a  whole  series  of  ideas,  which  Pas¬ 
cal  and  Rousseau  thought  better  to  leave  untouched.  The  latter 
expended  as  much  effort  in  the  cause  of  intelligibility  as  the  other 
two  in  coating  or  rather  arming  themselves  with  bristling  formulae, 
with  the  result  of  making  themselves  obscure.  And  all  this,  it 
may  be  seen,  brings  us  back  continually  to  the  idea  of  sociability 

as  the  essential  characteristic  of  French  literature, 
n — 42 


FERDINAND  BRUNETIERE 


658 


By  comparison  with  French  literature,  thus  defined  and  char¬ 
acterized,  the  English  is  an  individualist  literature.  With  the 
exception  of  three  or  four  generations  in  its  long  history,  that  of 
Congreve  and  Wycherley,  for  instance,  or  that  of  Pope  and  Addi¬ 
son,— to  whom  it  should  not  be  forgotten  must  also  be  added 
the  name  of  Swift, — you  will  find  that  the  English  only  write  in 
order  to  experience  the  exterior  sensation  of  their  individuality. 
Hence  that  <( humor, ®  which  maybe  defined  as  the  expression  of 
the  pleasure  they  feel  in  giving  vent  to  their  peculiar  thoughts, 
often  in  a  manner  unexpected  by  themselves.  Hence,  too,  the 
abundance,  diversity,  and  richness  of  their  lyric  vein,  since  indi¬ 
vidualism  is  its  real  source,  and  an  ode  or  elegy  is  the  involun¬ 
tary  afflux,  as  it  were,  and  overflow  of  the  innermost  feelings  in 
the  poet’s  soul.  Hence,  again,  the  eccentricity  of  the  majority  of 
their  great  writers  with  respect  to  the  rest  of  their  compatriots, 
as  if,  in  truth,  they  only  became  conscious  of  themselves  by  tak¬ 
ing  up  the  opposite  ground  to  those  who  believed  they  resembled 
them  most.  Hence,  in  a  word,  the  nature  of  their  imagination 
and  their  sensibility.  As  if  a  man’s  capacity  of  representing 
himself  and  his  feelings  to  another  man  —  as  if  fantasy  truly  so 
called,  which  is  the  most  variable  of  faculties,  constituted  the 
element  of  most  permanent  value !  .  But  cannot  English 

literature  be  otherwise  characterized  ?  As  you  may  imagine,  I  do 
not  venture  to  answer  in  the  affirmative;  and  all  I  say  is,  that  I 
cannot  better  characterize  in  one  word  that  which  differentiates 
English  from  French  literature. 


659 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 

(1794-1878) 

illiam  Cullen  Bryant  was  essentially  a  poet,  and  it  is  in  his 
poetry  rather  than  his  prose  that  he  has  attained  his  highest 
excellence.  But  though  we  do  not  find  in  his  prose  the 
same  exalted  feeling  and  sublimity  of  language  which  make  his 
<(  Thanatopsis ”  and  ode  (<To  a  Waterfowl ”  masterpieces  of  their  kind, 
we  do  find  even  in  his  newspaper  prose  even  when  most  loosely  writ¬ 
ten  the  disjecta  membra  poetce — the  unmistakable  evidences  of  the  same 
genius  which  expresses  itself  in  his  noblest  poems.  The  demands  of 
the  daily  newspapers  in  the  early  days  of  the  telegraph  resulted  in  a 
style  of  essays  which  have  almost  ceased  to  exist — the  <(  letters ”  deal¬ 
ing  not  with  news,  but  with  the  life,  habits,  and  morals  of  the  peo¬ 
ples  of  other  cities  and  countries.  Bryant’s  letters  to  the  Evening 
Post  of  which  for  fifty  years  he  was  editor,  are  among  the  best  of 
their  class.  In  (<  A  Day  in  Florence ®  he  shows  the  same  sympathy 
for  form,  the  same  imaginative  power  of  grasping,  grouping,  and  de¬ 
veloping  incident  which  makes  the  poet. 

He  was  born  in  Cummington,  Massachusetts,  November  3d,  1794. 
His  genius  was  precocious,  and  its  first  adequate  expression,  «  Thana¬ 
topsis, w  written  when  he  was  nineteen,  is  in  the  general  judgment  his 
masterpiece.  After  leaving  Williams  College  where  he  spent  two 
years,  he  studied  law,  but  after  becoming  connected  with  the  New 
York  Evening  Post  in  1826,  he  remained  with  it  until  his  death,  June 
1 2th,  1878.  His  life  as  a  journalist  was  one  of  the  highest  usefulness. 
He  devoted  himself  and  his  paper  to  every  worthy  cause  which 
needed  help.  The  standard  of  metropolitan  journalism  as  he  repre¬ 
sented  it  was  rectitude,  and  he  demonstrated  that  there  is  nothing 
absurd,  unbusiness-like  or  unprofessional  in  so  conducting  a  news¬ 
paper  as  to  make  it  represent  editorial  brains  and  conscience.  His 
<(  Letters  of  a  Traveler  ”  (1852),  (<  Letters  from  Spain  and  Other  Coun¬ 
tries  ®  (1859),  and  (<  Letters  from  the  East”  (1869),  were  all  originally 
contributed  to  the  Evening  Post. 


66o 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 


A  DAY  IN  FLORENCE 

Let  me  give  you  the  history  of  a  fine  day  in  October,  passed 
at  the  window  of  my  lodgings  on  the  Lung’  Arno,  close  to 
the  bridge  Alla  Carraja.  Waked  by  the  jangling  of  all  the 
bells  in  Florence  and  by  the  noise  of  carriages  departing  loaded 
with  travelers  for  Rome  and  other  places  in  the  south  of  Italy, 
I  rise,  dress  myself,  and  take  my  place  at  the  window.  I  see 
crowds  of  men  and  women  from  the  country,  the  former  in 
brown  velvet  jackets,  and  the  latter  in  broad-brimmed  straw  hats, 
driving  donkeys  loaded  with  panniers  or  trundling  handcarts  be¬ 
fore  them,  heaped  with  grapes,  figs,  and  all  the  fruits  of  the 
orchard,  the  garden,  and  the  field.  They  have  hardly  passed, 
when  large  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  make  their  appearance,  at¬ 
tended  by  shepherds  and  their  families,  driven  by  the  approach 
of  winter  from  the  Apennines,  and  seeking  the  pastures  of  the 
Maremma,  a  rich,  but,  in  the  summer,  an  unhealthy  tract  on 
the  coast.  The  men  and  boys  are  dressed  in  knee  breeches, 
the  women  in  bodices,  and  both  sexes  wear  capotes  with  pointed 
hoods,  and  felt  hats  with  conical  crowns;  they  carry  long  staves 
in  their  hands,  and  their  arms  are  loaded  with  kids  and  lambs 
too  young  to  keep  pace  with  their  mothers.  After  the  long  pro¬ 
cession  of  sheep  and  goats  and  dogs  and  men  and  women  and 
children,  come  horses  loaded  with  cloths  and  poles  for  tents, 
kitchen  utensils,  and  the  rest  of  the  younglings  of  the  flock.  A 
little  after  sunrise  I  see  well-fed  donkeys,  in  coverings  of  red 
cloth,  driven  over  the  bridge  to  be  milked  for  invalids.  Maid¬ 
servants,  bareheaded,  with  huge,  high-carved  combs  in  their  hair, 
waiters  of  coffeehouses  carrying  the  morning  cup  of  coffee  or 
chocolate  to  their  customers,  bakers’  boys  with  a  dozen  loaves  on 
a  board  balanced  on  their  heads,  milkmen  with  rush  baskets  filled 
with  flasks  of  milk,  are  crossing  the  streets  in  all  directions.  A 
little  later  the  bell  of  the  small  chapel  opposite  to  my  window 
rings  furiously  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then  I  hear  mass 
chanted  in  a  deep  strong  nasal  tone.  As  the  day  advances,  the 
English,  in  white  hats  and  white  pantaloons,  come  out  of  their 
lodgings,  accompanied  sometimes  by  their  hale  and  square-built 
spouses,  and  saunter  stiffly  along  the  Arno,  or  take  their  way  to 
the  public  galleries  and  museums.  Their  massive,  clean,  and 
brightly  polished  carriages  also  begin  to  rattle  through  the  streets, 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 


661 


setting  out  on  excursions  to  some  part  of  the  environs  of  Flor¬ 
ence —  to  Fiesole,  to  the  Pratolino,  to  the  Bello  Sguardo,  to  the 
Poggio  Imperiale.  Sights  of  a  different  kind  now  present  them¬ 
selves.  Sometimes  it  is  a  troop  of  stout  Franciscan  friars,  in 
sandals  and  brown  robes,  each  carrying  his  staff  and  wearing  a 
brown,  broad-brimmed  hat  with  a  hemispherical  crown.  Some¬ 
times  it  is  a  band  of  young  theological  students,  in  purple  cas¬ 
socks  with  red  collars  and  cuffs,  let  out  on  a  holiday,  attended  by 
their  clerical  instructors,  to  ramble  in  the  Cascine.  There  is  a 
priest  coming  over  the  bridge,  a  man  of  venerable  age  and  great 
reputation  for  sanctity.  The  common  people  crowd  around  him 
to  kiss  his  hand,  and  obtain  a  kind  word  from  him  as  he  passes. 
But  what  is  that  procession  of  men  in  black  gowns,  black  gaiters, 
and  black  masks  moving  swiftly  along,  and  bearing  on  their 
shoulders  a  litter  covered  with  black  cloth  ?  These  are  the 
Brethren  of  Mercy,  who  have  assembled  at  the  sound  of  the 
cathedral  bell,  and  are  conveying  some  sick  or  wounded  person 
to  the  hospital.  As  the  day  begins  to  decline,  the  numbers  of 
carriages  in  the  streets,  filled  with  gaily  dressed  people  attended 
by  servants  in  livery,  increases.  The  Grand  Duke’s  equipage,  an 
elegant  carriage  drawn  by  six  horses,  with  coachmen,  footmen, 
and  outriders  in  drab-colored  livery,  comes  from  the  Pitti  Palace, 
and  crosses  the  Arno,  either  by  the  bridge  close  to  my  lodgings, 
or  by  that  called  Alla  Santa  Trinita,  which  is  in  full  sight  from 
the  windows.  The  Florentine  nobility,  with  their  families,  and 
the  English  residents,  now  throng  to  the  Cascine,  to  drive  at  a 
slow  pace  through  its  thickly  planted  walks  of  elms,  oaks,  and 
ilexes.  As  the  sun  is  sinking  I  perceive  the  Quay  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Arno  filled  with  a  moving  crowd  of  well-dressed  peo¬ 
ple  walking  to  and  fro  and  enjoying  the  beauty  of  the  evening. 
Travelers  now  arrive  from  all  quarters,  in  cabriolets,  in  calashes, 
in  the  shabby  vettura,  and  in  the  elegant  private  carriage  drawn 
by  post-horses,  and  driven  by  postilions  in  the  tightest  possible 
deer-skin  breeches,  the  smallest  red  coats,  and  the  hugest  jack- 
boots.  The  streets  about  the  doors  of  the  hotels  resound  with 
the  crackling  of  whips  and  the  stamping  of  horses,  and  are  en¬ 
cumbered  with  carriages,  heaps  of  baggage,  porters,  postilions, 
couriers,  and  travelers.  Night  at  length  arrives  —  the  time  of 
spectacles  and  funerals.  The  carriages  rattle  towards  the  opera 
houses.  Trains  of  people,  sometimes  in  white  robes  and  some- 


662 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 


times  in  black,  carrying  blazing  torches  and  a  cross  elevated  on 
a  high  pole  before  a  coffin,  pass  through  the  streets  chanting  the 
service  for  the  dead.  The  Brethren  of  Mercy  may  also  be  seen 
engaged  in  their  office.  The  rapidity  of  their  pace,  the  flare  of 
their  torches,  the  gleam  of  their  eyes  through  their  masks,  and 
their  sable  garb,  give  them  a  kind  of  supernatural  appearance. 
I  return  to  bed  and  fall  asleep  amidst  the  shouts  of  people  re¬ 
turning  from  the  opera,  singing  as  they  go  snatches  of  the  music 
with  which  they  had  been  entertained  during  the  evening. 

From  (( Letters  of  a  Traveler. })  Put¬ 
nam’s  Sons,  New  York,  1850. 


EUROPE  UNDER  THE  BAYONET 

Whoever  should  visit  the  principal  countries  of  Europe  at 
the  present  moment  might  take  them  for  conquered 
provinces  held  in  subjection  by  their  victorious  masters 
at  the  point  of  the  sword.  Such  was  the  aspect  which  France 
presented  when  I  came  to  Paris  a  few  weeks  since.  The  city 
was  then  in  what  is  called,  by  a  convenient  fiction,  a  state  of 
siege;  soldiers  filled  the  streets,  were  posted  in  every  public 
square,  and  at  every  corner;  were  seen  marching  before  the 
churches,  the  cornices  of  which  bore  the  inscription  of  Liberty, 
Equality,  and  Fraternity,  —  keeping  their  brethren  quiet  by  the 
bayonet.  I  have  since  made  a  journey  to  Bavaria  and  Switzer¬ 
land,  and  on  returning  I  find  the  siege  raised,  and  these  demon¬ 
strations  of  fraternity  less  formal,  but  the  show  and  the  menace 
of  military  force  are  scarcely  less  apparent.  Those  who  maintain 
that  France  is  not  fit  for  liberty  need  not  afflict  themselves  with 
the  idea  that  there  is  at  present  more  liberty  in  France  than  her 
people  know  how  to  enjoy. 

On  my  journey,  I  found  the  cities  along  the  Rhine  crowded 
with  soldiers;  the  sound  of  the  drum  was  heard  among  the  hills 
covered  with  vines;  women  were  trundling  loaded  wheelbarrows 
and  carrying  panniers  like  asses,  to  earn  the  taxes  which  are  ex¬ 
torted  to  support  the  men  who  stalk  about  in  uniform.  I  entered 
Heidelberg  with  anticipations  of  pleasure;  they  were  dashed  in  a 
moment;  the  city  was  in  a  state  of  siege,  occupied  by  Prussian 
troops  which  had  been  sent  to  take  the  part  of  the  Grand  Duke 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 


663 


of  Baden  against  his  people.  I  could  hardly  believe  that  this 
was  the  same  peaceful  and  friendly  city  which  I  had  known  in 
better  times.  Every  other  man  in  the  streets  was  a  soldier;  the 
beautiful  walks  about  the  old  castle  were  full  of  soldiers;  in  the 
evening  they  were  reeling  through  the  streets.  (<This  invention, ® 
said  a  German  who  had  been  a  member  of  the  Diet  of  the  Con¬ 
federation  lately  broken  up,  <(  this  invention  of  declaring  a  city, 
which  has  unconditionally  submitted,  to  be  still  in  a  state  of  siege, 
is  but  a  device  to  practice  the  most  unbounded  oppression.  Any 
man  who  is  suspected,  or  feared,  or  disliked,  or  supposed  not  to 
approve  of  the  proceedings  of  the  victorious  party,  is  arrested 
and  imprisoned  at  pleasure.  He  may  be  guiltless  of  any  offense 
which  could  be  made  a  pretext  for  condemning  him,  but  his 
trial  is  arbitrarily  postponed,  and  when  at  last  he  is  released 
he  has  suffered  the  penalty  of  a  long  confinement,  and  is  taught 

how  dangerous  it  is  to  become  obnoxious  to  the  government. }> 
•  •  •••  •••• 

At  Heilbronn  we  took  the  railway  for  Stuttgart,  the  capital  of 
Wiirtemberg.  There  was  considerable  proportion  of  men  in  mil¬ 
itary  trappings  among  the  passengers,  but  at  one  of  the  stations 
they  came  upon  us  like  a  cloud,  and  we  entered  Stuttgart  with 
a  little  army.  That  city,  too,  looked  as  if  in  a  state  of  siege,  so 
numerous  were  the  soldiery,  though  the  vine-covered  hills,  among 
which  it  is  situated,  could  have  given  them  a  better  occupation. 
The  railway  beyond  Stuttgart  wound  through  a  deep  valley  and 
ended  at  Geisslingen,  an  ancient  Swabian  town,  in  a  gorge  of 
the  mountains,  with  tall  old  houses,  not  one  of  which,  I  might 
safely  affirm,  had  been  built  within  the  last  two  hundred  years. 
From  this  place  to  Ulm,  on  the  Danube,  the  road  was  fairly 
lined  with  soldiers  walking  or  resting  by  the  wayside,  or  closely 
packed  in  the  peasants’  wagons,  which  they  had  hired  to  carry 
them  short  distances.  At  Ulm  we  were  obliged  to  content  our¬ 
selves  with  straitened  accommodations,  the  hotels  being-  occupied 
by  the  gentry  in  epaulets. 

I  hoped  to  see  fewer  of  this  class  at  the  capital  of  Bavaria, 
but  it  was  not  so;  they  were  everywhere  placed  in  sight  as  if  to 
keep  the  people  in  awe.  <(  These  fellows, said  a  German  to  me, 
<(  are  always  too  numerous,  but  in  ordinary  times  they  are  kept 
in  the  capitals  and  barracks,  and  the  nuisance  is  out  of  sight. 
Now,  however,  the  occasion  is  supposed  to  make  their  presence 
necessary  in  the  midst  of  the  people,  and  they  swarm  every- 


664 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 


where. »  Another,  it  was  our  host  of  the  <(  Goldener  Hirsch,”  said 
to  my  friend,  <(  I  think  I  shall  emigrate  to  America,  I  am  tired 
of  living  under  the  bayonet.  ® 

From  <(  Letters »  published  in  1850. 


THE  LIFE  OF  WOMEN  IN  CUBA 

In  walking  through  the  streets  of  the  towns  in  Cuba,  I  have 
been  entertained  by  the  glimpses  I  had  through  the  ample 
windows,  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  parlors.  Sometimes 
a  curtain  hanging  before  them  allowed  me  only  a  sight  of  the 
small  hands  which  clasped  the  bars  of  the  grate,  and  the  dusky 
faces  and  dark  eyes  peeping  into  the  street  and  scanning  the 
passers-by.  At  other  times  the  whole  room  was  seen,  with  its 
furniture,  and  its  female  forms  sitting  in  languid  postures,  court¬ 
ing  the  breeze  as  it  entered  from  without.  In  the  evening,  as  I 
passed  along  the  narrow  sidewalk  of  the  narrow  streets,  I  have 
been  startled  at  finding  myself  almost  in  the  midst  of  a  merry 
party  gathered  about  the  window  of  a  brilliantly  lighted  room, 
and  chattering  the  soft  Spanish  of  the  island  in  voices  that 
sounded  strangely  near  to  me.  I  have  spoken  of  their  languid 
postures;  they  love  to  recline  on  sofas;  their  houses  are  filled 
with  rocking-chairs  imported  from  the  United  States;  they  are 
fond  of  sitting  in  chairs  tilted  against  the  wall,  as  we  sometimes 
do  at  home.  Indeed,  they  go  beyond  us  in  this  respect;  for  in 
Cuba  they  have  invented  a  kind  of  chair  which,  by  lowering  the 
back  and  raising  the  knees,  places  the  sitter  precisely  in  the 
posture  he  would  take  if  he  sat  in  a  chair  leaning  backward 
against  a  wall.  It  is  a  luxurious  attitude,  I  must  own,  and  I  do 
not  wonder  that  it  is  a  favorite  with  lazy  people,  for  it  relieves 
one  of  all  the  trouble  of  keeping  the  body  upright. 

It  is  the  women  who  form  the  large  majority  of  the  worship¬ 
ers  in  the  churches.  I  landed  here  in  Passion  Week;  and  the 
next  day  was  Holy  Thursday,  when  not  a  vehicle  on  wheels  of 
any  sort  is  allowed  to  be  seen  in  the  streets;  and  the  ladies, 
contrary  to  their  custom  during  the  rest  of  the  year,  are  obliged 
to  resort  to  the  churches  on  foot.  Negro  servants  of  both  sexes 
were  seen  passing  to  and  fro,  carrying  mats  on  which  their  mis¬ 
tresses  were  to  kneel  in  the  morning  service.  All  the  white 
female  population,  young  and  old,  were  dressed  in  black,  with 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 


665 


black  lace  veils.  In  the  afternoon,  three  wooden  or  waxen  im¬ 
ages  of  the  size  of  life,  representing  Christ  in  the  different  stages 
of  his  passion,  were  placed  in  the  spacious  Church  of  St.  Catha¬ 
rine,  which  was  so  thronged  that  I  found  it  difficult  to  enter. 
Near  the  door  was  a  figure  of  the  Savior  sinking  under  the 
weight  of  his  cross,  and  the  worshipers  were  kneeling  to  kiss  his 
feet.  Aged  negro  men  and  women,  half-naked  negro  children, 
ladies  richly  attired,  little  girls  in  Parisian  dresses,  with  lustrous 
black  eyes  and  a  profusion  of  ringlets,  cast  themselves  down  be¬ 
fore  the  image,  and  pressed  their  lips  to  its  feet  in  a  passion  of 
devotion.  Mothers  led  up  their  little  ones,  and  showed  them 
how  to  perform  this  act  of  adoration.  I  saw  matrons  and  young 
women  rise  from  it  with  their  eyes  red  with  tears. 


666 


JAMES  BRYCE 

(1838-) 

he  American  Commonwealth,  ®  published  by  James  Bryce  in 
1888,  was  accepted  at  once  as  the  most  important  study  of 
American  institutions  made  since  the  publication  of  De 
Tocqueville’s  <(  Democracy  in  America.”  His  (<  Holy  Roman  Empire,” 
published  in  1864,  passed  through  seven  editions  in  ten  years,  but  it 
was  not  until  the  appearance  of  tt  The  American  Commonwealth ” 
that  his  genius  was  fully  recognized.  It  shows  that  he  has  been  a 
deep  student  of  the  whole  movement  of  the  civilization  which  resulted 
in  the  surprising  social,  industrial,  and  political  changes  of  his  gen¬ 
eration.  His  essays,  as  yet  uncollected,  show  the  same  intellectual 
traits  which  account  for  the  success  of  (<  The  American  Common¬ 
wealth.  ”  He  is  tolerant  enough  to  understand  all  sides  of  every 
question  with  which  he  deals,  but  is  fundamentally  conservative  in  his 
intellectual  habits  and  is  often  much  less  radical  in  dealing  with  the 
principles  of  social  organization  than  were  Chatham,  Burke,  and  the 
great  Whigs  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

He  was  born  at  Belfast,  Ireland,  May  10th,  1838,  and  educated  at 
Glasgow,  Cambridge,  and  Heidelberg.  From  1870  to  1893,  he  was 
regius  professor  of  civil  law  at  Oxford.  In  Parliament,  where  since 
1880  he  has  served  with  distinction,  he  has  been  since  the  death  of 
Gladstone  one  of  the  chief  supports  of  the  Liberal  party.  He  served 
under  Gladstone  as  under-secretary  for  foreign  affairs,  chancellor  of 
the  duchy  of  Lancaster,  and  president  of  the  board  of  trade. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CIVIC  DUTY 

Some  years  ago  in  a  lonely  mountain  valley  of  the  canton  of 
Glarus  in  Switzerland,  I  was  conversing  with  a  peasant 
landowner  about  the  Landesgemeinde  (popular  primary  as¬ 
sembly)  which  regulates  the  affairs  of  the  canton.  After  he  had 
given  me  some  details,  I  asked  him  whether  it  was  not  the  fa<tt 
that  all  citizens  had  the  right  of  attending  and  voting  in  this  as¬ 
sembly.  <(  It  is  not  so  much  their  Right,  ”  he  replied,  <(  as  their 
Duty.” 


JAMES  BRYCE 


66  7 


This  is  the  spirit  by  which  free  governments  live.  One  would 
like  to  see  more  of  it  here  in  London,  where  parliamentary  and 
county  council  elections  often  bring  little  more  than  half  of 
the  voters  to  the  polls.  One  would  like  to  see  more  of  it  in 
the  United  States,  where  in  many  places  a  large  proportion  of  the 
voters  take  no  trouble  to  inform  themselves  as  to  the  merits  of 
the  candidates  or  the  political  issues  submitted  to  them,  but  vote 
blindly  at  the  bidding  of  their  party  organizations. 

This  little  anecdote  of  my  Swiss  friend  illustrates  what  I 
mean  in  speaking  of  patriotism  as  the  basis  of  the  sense  of  civic 
duty.  If  people  learn  to  love  their  country,  if  their  vision  is 
raised  beyond  the  petty  circle  of  their  personal  and  family  inter¬ 
ests  to  appreciate  the  true  width  and  splendor  of  national  life, 
as  a  thing  which  not  only  embraces  all  of  us  who  are  now  living 
here  and  grouped  in  a  great  body  seeking  common  ends,  but 
reaches  back  into  the  immemorial  past  and  forward  into  the  mys¬ 
terious  future,  it  elevates  the  conception  of  citizenship,  it  fills  the 
sheath  of  empty  words  with  a  keen-edged  sword,  it  helps  men  to 
rise  above  mere  party  views  and  to  feel  their  exercise  of  voting 
power  to  be  a  solemn  trust. 

<(  Love  thou  thy  land  with  love  far  brought 
From  out  the  storied  Past  and  used 
Within  the  Present,  but  transfused 
Through  future  time  by  power  of  thought. )y 

Into  these  feelings  even  the  poorest  citizen  may  now  enter. 
Our  British  institutions  have  been  widened  to  admit  him:  the 
practice  of  using  the  powers  intrusted  to  him  ought  to  form  in 
him  not  only  knowledge,  but  the  sense  of  duty  itself.  So,  at  any 
rate,  we  have  all  hoped;  so  the  more  sanguine  have  predicted. 
And  as  this  feeling  grows  under  the  influence  of  free  institu¬ 
tions,  it  becomes  itself  a  further  means  of  developing  new  and 
possibly  better  institutions,  such  as  the  needs  of  the  time  may 
demand.  Let  me  take  an  illustration  from  a  question  which  has 
been  much  discussed  of  late,  but  still  remains  in  what  may  be 
called  a  fluid  condition.  The  masses  of  the  British  people  in 
these  isles,  and  probably  to  a  larger  extent  also  the  masses  of 
the  people  in  our  colonies,  are  still  imperfectly  familiar  with  the 
idea  of  a  great  English-speaking  race  over  the  world,  and  of  all 
which  the  existence  of  that  race  imports.  Till  we  have  created 
more  of  an  imperial  spirit  —  by  which  I  do  not  mean  a  spirit  of 


668 


JAMES  BRYCE 


vainglory  or  aggression  or  defiance  —  far  from  it  —  but  a  spirit 
of  pride  and  joy  in  the  extension  of  our  language,  our  literature, 
our  laws,  our  commerce  over  the  vast  spaces  of  the  earth  and 
the  furthest  islands  of  the  sea,  with  a  sense  of  the  splendid  op¬ 
portunities  and  solemn  responsibilities  which  that  extension  car¬ 
ries  with  it  —  till  we  and  our  colonies  have  more  of  such  an 
imperial  spirit,  hardly  shall  we  be  able  to  create  the  institutions 
that  will  ere  long  be  needed  if  all  these  scattered  segments  of 
the  British  people  are  to  be  held  together  in  one  enduring 
fabric.  But  if  sentiment  ripens  quickly,  and  we  find  ourselves 
able  to  create  those  institutions,  they  will  themselves  develop  and 
foster  and  strengthen  the  imperial  spirit  whereof  I  have  spoken, 
and  make  it,  as  we  trust,  since  it  will  rest  even  more  upon  moral 
than  upon  material  bonds,  a  guarantee  as  well  of  peace  as  of 
freedom  among  the  English-speaking  races  of  the  world. 

It  is  common  to  talk  of  ignorance  as  the  chief  peril  of  democ¬ 
racies.  That  it  is  a  peril  no  one  denies,  and  we  are  all,  I  hope, 
agreed  that  it  has  become  more  than  ever  the  duty  of  the  State 
to  insist  not  only  on  a  more  penetrating  and  stimulative  instruc¬ 
tion,  but  upon  the  inclusion  of  the  elements  of  constitutional 
knowledge  among  the  subjects  to  be  taught  in  the  higher  stand¬ 
ards  of  our  schools. 

Democracy  has,  however,  another  foe  not  less  pernicious. 
This  is  indolence.  Indifference  to  public  affairs  shows  itself  not 
merely  in  a  neglect  to  study  them  and  fit  oneself  to  give  a  ju¬ 
dicious  vote,  but  in  the  apathy  which  does  not  care  to  give  a 
vote  when  the  time  arrives.  It  is  a  serious  evil  already  in  some 
countries,  serious  in  London,  very  serious  in  Italy,  serious  enough 
in  the  United  States,  not  indeed  at  presidential,  but  at  city  and 
other  local  elections,  for  some  reformer  to  have  proposed  to 
punish  with  a  fine  the  citizen  who  neglects  to  vote,  as  in  some 
old  Greek  city  the  law  proclaimed  penalties  against  the  citizen 
who  in  a  sedition  stood  aloof,  taking  neither  one  side  nor  the 
other.  For,  unhappily,  it  is  the  respectable,  well-meaning,  easy¬ 
going  citizen,  as  well  as  the  merely  ignorant  citizen,  who  is  apt 
to  be  listless.  Those  who  have  their  private  ends  to  serve,  their 
axes  to  grind  and  logs  to  roll,  are  not  indolent.  Private  interest 
spurs  them  on;  and  if  the  so-called  “good  citizen, })  who  has  no 
desire  or  aim  except  that  good  government  which  benefits  him 
no  more  than  every  one  else,  does  not  bestir  himself,  the  public 
funds  may  become  the  plunder,  and  the  public  interests  the  sport 


JAMES  BRYCE 


669 


of  unscrupulous  adventurers.  Of  such  evils  which  have  befallen 
some  great  communities,  there  are  happily  no  present  signs 
among  ourselves;  though  it  is  much  to  be  wished  that  here  in 
Britain  we  could  secure  both  at  municipal  and  parliamentary 
elections  a  much  heavier  vote  than  is  usually  cast.  More  com¬ 
mon  in  all  classes  is  that  other  kind  of  indolence  which  bestows 
so  little  time  and  thought  upon  current  events  and  political  ques¬ 
tions,  that  it  does  not  try  to  master  their  real  significance,  to  ex¬ 
tend  its  knowledge,  and  to  base  its  opinion  upon  solid  grounds. 
We  need,  all  of  us,  in  all  classes  and  ranks  of  society,  the  rich 
and  educated  perhaps  even  more  than  others,  because  they  are 
looked  up  to  for  guidance  by  their  poorer  or  less  educated  neigh¬ 
bors,  to  be  reminded  that  as  Democracy  —  into  which  we  have 
plunged  so  suddenly  that  some  hardly  yet  realize  what  Democ¬ 
racy  means  —  is,  of  all  forms  of  government,  that  which  needs 
the  largest  measure  of  intelligence  and  public  spirit,  so  of  all 
democracies  ours  is  that  which  has  been  content  to  surround 
itself  with  the  fewest  checks  and  safeguards.  The  venerable 
Throne  remains,  and  serves  to  conceal  the  greatness  of  the  trans¬ 
formation  that  these  twenty-five  years  have  worked.  But  which 
among  the  institutions  of  the  country  could  withstand  any  gen¬ 
eral  demand  proceeding  from  the  masses  of  the  people,  or  even 
delay  the  accomplishment  of  any  purpose  on  which  they  were 
ardently  set,  seeing  that  they  possess  in  the  popular  house  a 
weapon  whose  vote,  .given  however  hastily,  can  effect  the  most 
revolutionary  change  ?  I  do  not  say  this  to  alarm  any  timid 
mind,  believing  that  our  British  masses  are  not  set  upon  such 
changes,  and  are  still  disposed  to  listen  to  the  voices  of  those 
whom  they  respect,  to  whatever  class  such  persons  may  belong. 
The  mutual  good-will  of  classes  is  still  among  the  most  hopeful 
features  in  our  political  condition.  But  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  it  is  upon  the  wisdom,  good  sense,  and  self-restraint  of  the 
masses  of  the  people  that  this  vast  and  splendid  edifice  of  British 
power  and  prosperity  rests,  and  to  feel  that  everything  we  can 
do  to  bring  political  knowledge  and  judgment  within  their  reach 
is  now  more  than  ever  called  for.  Let  me  express  this  trust  in 
the  majestic  words  addressed  to  the  head  of  the  State  by  the 
poet  whose  loss  we  are  now  mourning,  and  than  whom  England 
had  no  more  truly  patriotic  son:  — 

(<  Take  withal 

Thy  poet’s  blessing,  and  his  trust  that  heaven 


670 


JAMES  BRYCE 


Will  blow  the  tempest  in  the  distance  back 

From  thine  and  ours;  for  some  are  scared  who  mark, 

Or  wisely  or  unwisely,  signs  of  storm, 

Waverings  of  every  vane  with  every  wind, 

And  that  which  knows,  but  careful  for  itself, 

And  that  which  knows  not,  ruling  that  which  knows 
To  its  own  harm:  the  goal  of  this  great  world 
Lies  beyond  sight;  yet  —  if  our  slowly  grown 
And  crown’d  Republic’s  crowning  common  sense, 

That  saved  her  many  times,  fail  not  —  their  fears 
Are  morning  shadows  huger  than  the  shapes 
That  cast  them,  not  those  gloomier  which  forego 
The  darkness  of  that  battle  in  the  West, 

Where  all  of  high  and  holy  dies  away.® 

From  the  Contemporary  Review,  1893. 


bji 


LUDWIG  BUCHNER 

(Friedrich  Karl  Christian  Ludwig  von  Buchner) 

(1824-) 


*udwig  Buchner,  celebrated  as  a  scientist  and  essayist  on  phil¬ 
osophical  subjects,  was  born  at  Darmstadt,  Germany,  March 
28th,  1824.  Educated  at  the  universities  of  Giessen,  Wart- 
burg,  and  Vienna,  he  began  his  professional  life  as  a  lecturer  at  Tu¬ 
bingen  where  he  remained  until  the  radical  views  of  his  (<  Force  and 
Matter })  (Kraft  und  Stoff )  led  to  his  retirement.  In  this  work  which 
has  been  translated  into  most  European  languages,  he  taught  (<the 
eternity  of  matter,  the  immortality  of  force,  the  universal  simultane¬ 
ousness  of  light  and  life,  and  the  infinity  of  forms  of  being  in  time 
and  space.  ®  It  may  be  more  intelligible  to  add  that  the  book  was 
generally  accepted  as  an  expression  of  the  most  advanced  material¬ 
ism.  Among  Doctor  Buchner’s  other  works  are  (<  Nature  and  Spirit,  * 
<(  Physiologische  Bilder,”  and  (( Man’s  Place  in  Nature.  * 


WOMAN’S  BRAIN  AND  RIGHTS 

The  ancient  Greeks  as  a  rule  gave  their  female  statues  rela¬ 
tively  small  foreheads,  while,  on  the  contrary,  their  repre¬ 
sentations  of  male  figures,  such  as,  for  example,  the  Zeus  of 
Phidias,  exhibit  the  powerful  forehead  of  intellectual  ascendency. 
The  strange  fashion  of  wearing  a  <(  fringe w  of  hair  over  the 
brows  is  undoubtedly  an  endeavor  to  make  the  forehead  appear 
as  low  as  possible.  This  experience  in  daily  life,  which,  like  all 
rules,  is  of  course  limited  by  numerous  exceptions,  receives  full 
confirmation  from  the  observations  made  by  Professor  Huschke 
in  brain  and  skull  measurements,  according  to  which  the  frontal 
bone  of  the  female  is  less  in  area  than  that  of  the  male  by  2,000 
millimetres,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  female  crown  bones  pos¬ 
sess  a  proportionate  advantage  over  the  male.  In  the  course  of 
his  measurements  of  the  brains  of  Germans,  who  of  all  nations 


6j2 


LUDWIG  BUCHNER 


possess  the  largest  crowns,  Huschke  found  that  in  the  male  this 
part  measured  on  an  average  262  cubic  centimetres,  in  the  fe¬ 
male  only  208.  He  also  ascertained  that  the  <(  middle  brain,  * 
containing  the  <(  central  gray  *  matter,  which  has  no  connection 
with  the  intelligence,  and  which  in  animals  shows  a  considerable 
proportionate  development  compared  to  the  rest  of  the  brain, 
exhibits  also  in  women  a  noticeable  preponderance.  In  other 
words,  the  woman  possesses  more  crown  and  middle  brain,  the 
man  more  forehead  and  thinking  brain.  Now,  according  to  many 
scientific  experiments,  the  details  of  which  would  lead  us  too  far 
from  our  subject,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  front  sections  of 
the  brain  are  the  seat  of  the  intelligence  and  higher  intellectual 
activities,  that  is,  the  powers  of  imagination,  proportion,  and  de¬ 
termination,  while  the  locus  operandi  of  the  emotions  and  feelings 
lies  in  the  crown  or  hinder  part.  Huschke  sums  up  the  result 
of  his  investigations  as  follows:  The  character  of  the  masculine 
disposition  is  shown  in  the  frontal  bone,  that  of  the  feminine  in 
the  crown  bones,  and  the  woman  whose  physical  character  is  a 
continuation  of  the  childlike  has  remained  a  child  in  respect  to 
her  brain  also,  though  more  exceptions  to  the  rule  occur  than  in 
the  case  of  the  ordinary  child,  and  though  the  difference  between 
the  crown  and  frontal  bones  is  not  marked  in  the  same  degree. 
This  scientific  result  is  therefore  in  accord  with  the  view  held 
for  so  many  thousand  years,  that  the  woman  is  designed  more 
for  the  life  of  the  heart  and  of  the  emotions  than  for  that  of  the 
mind  and  the  higher  intellectual  activities. 

The  opponents  of  the  movement  in  favor  of  women  always 
point  out,  as  did  even  the  otherwise  unprejudiced  Darwin,  that 
the  intellectual  achievements  of  individual  women  do  not  amount 
to  a  very  imposing  total  and  that  a  comparison  between  the 
sexes  on  this  point  must  result  very  unfavorably  to  the  women. 
This  is  certainly  the  case,  and  in  face  of  their  social  disadvan¬ 
tages  it  would  be  wonderful  if  it  were  otherwise.  But  we  can¬ 
not  here  deduce  the  conclusion  that  nature  has  for  all  time 
ordained  the  intellectual  inferiority  of  woman,  but  rather  must 
we  agree  that  nature  has  not  here  spoken  at  all,  especially  when 
we  call  to  mind  the  important  circumstance  that  the  lower  in 
the  scale  of  civilization  we  look,  the  less  do  we  find  the  dif¬ 
ference  in  size  between  the  brains  of  the  sexes.  This  circum¬ 
stance  proves  that  in  civilization  and  not  in  nature  must  lie  the 
causes  for  this  difference  in  development.  The  fact  is  that  in 


LUDWIG  BUCHNER 


673 


the  process  of  the  division  of  labor  which  has  ever  accompanied 
the  march  of  civilization,  the  intellectual  or  brain  work  has  fallen 
more  and  more  to  the  lot  of  the  man,  while  the  sphere  of  woman 
lias  been  confined  more  and  more  to  the  domestic  duties.  It 
may  in  all  probability  be  assumed  that  the  difference  which  has 
been  found  to  lie,  in  this  respect,  between  the  higher  and  lower 
human  races  will  be  found  to  be  still  futher  accentuated  between 
the  upper  and  lower  classes  in  civilized  society,  though  no  ex¬ 
amination  of  this  point  has  as  yet  been  made;  because  the  man 
whose  labor  is  entirely  physical  generally  works  under  the  same 
conditions  as  the  woman. 

It  must  indeed  be  conceded  that  nature,  while  not  directly 
causing  the  defect  in  woman’s  brain,  is  not  entirely  free  from  re¬ 
sponsibility  in  the  matter,  since  from  the  very  beginning  she  has 
confided  to  the  female  sex  the  duties  of  maternity  and  the  care 
of  the  young, '  while  giving  to  man  that  sphere  of  active  labor 
from  which  woman  has  almost  always  been  of  necessity  excluded. 
Nor  has  this  fact  tended  to  improve  the  brain  of  woman,  as 
the  exercise  of  the  domestic  duties  calls  for  a  less  active  ex¬ 
ercise  of  the  mind  than  the  more  exacting  labors  of  man,  who 
has  to  strain  every  nerve  to  find  sustenance  for  himself  and  for 
all  his  weaker  dependants  in  the  struggle  for  existence  —  a  proc¬ 
ess  which  by  natural  selection  is  bound  to  tell  in  favor  of  the 
race.  On  the  other  hand,  again,  among  the  higher  classes  in  the 
United  States,  particularly  in  the  New  England  States,  the  re¬ 
markable  fact  has  been  experienced  that  the  women  frequently  ex¬ 
cel  their  husbands  in  general  culture  and  the  higher  intellectual 
powers,  since  side  by  side  with  their  domestic  occupations  they  re¬ 
tain  sufficient  leisure  to  pursue  their  intellectual  education,  whereas 
the  men  in  the  absorbing  rush  of  American  business  life  deteri¬ 
orate  in  intellect  and  are  able  to  continue  their  education  only 
in  a  superficial  manner.  Hence  it  appears  that  the  causes  which 
suffice  as  a  rule  to  exercise  an  impeding  influence  on  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  the  intellect  of  women  will  be  found  to  have  a  similar 
effect  when  acting  on  men,  and  that  not  in  the  sex  of  the  former, 
as  sex,  must  the  cause  of  her  intellectual  inferiority  be  sought. 
Indeed,  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  defective  brain  forma¬ 
tion  of  women  is  not  meant  as  a  hard  and  fast  rule  for  all  women, 
but  as  a  statement  of  a  general  fact;  nor  is  there  a  lack  of  in¬ 
dividual  women  who  possess  an  intelligence  far  transcending  the 
average  of  their  more  favorably  circumstanced  rivals. 


674 


LUDWIG  BUCHNER 


History  and  daily  experience  combine  to  confirm  this  and 
to  show  that  there  does  not  exist  a  sphere  of  intellectual  activity 
in  which  individual  women  might  not  achieve  the  highest  ex¬ 
cellence.  And  similarly  there  have  been,  and  still  exist,  men 
who  might  have  been,  and  would  be,  better  employed  in  sit¬ 
ting  over  the  distaff  or  knitting  needle  than  in  attending  the 
stern  councils  of  men  or  in  attempting  the  administration  of  af¬ 
fairs  which  require  energy  and  discernment.  Notwithstanding 
all  this,  the  meanest  of  men,  be  he  laborer  or  be  he  domestic, 
whose  whole  life  has  been  spent  in  mere  physical  labor,  stands, 
by  virtue  merely  of  his  sex,  as  to  his  legal,  political,  and  even 
social  relations,  far  higher  than  the  most  intelligent  and  accom¬ 
plished  of  women,  and  by  exercising  his  right  to  vote  takes  his 
share  in  the  government  of  his  country  while  the  whole  female 
portion  of  the  population  has  to  remain  dumb.  To  the  great  ma¬ 
jority  of  women,  who  are  accustomed  to  seek  their  whole  life’s 
happiness  within  the  family  circle,  this  state  of  affairs  is  in  no 
way  irksome,  nor  do  they  desire  any  change  in  their  condition. 
Quite  otherwise  is  it  with  those  women  —  and  their  number  is 
considerable  —  who  by  force  of  intellect  or  character  tower  above 
the  general  level  of  their  sex,  and  who  feel  the  need  of  being,  to 
others  as  to  themselves,  something  more  than  a  tolerably  useful 
piece  of  family  furniture. 

Now,  the  fact  that  such  women  as  these,  even  should  they  be 
but  exceptions,  should  be  hindered  from  the  free  development  and 
use  of  their  powers  solely  by  reason  of  their  sex,  and  in  compliance 
with  political  and  social  tradition,  appears  to  the  writer  of  this  ar¬ 
ticle  a  matter  of  great  injustice;  and  he  is  therefore  in  favor  of 
the  introduction  of  absolutely  free  competition  between  the  sexes, 
and  of  the  removal  of  all  the  bars  which  at  present  restrain  woman 
in  her  industrial  life  or  in  her  legal,  political,  and  social  relations. 
He  also  holds  that  the  dangers,  arising  from  such  an  emancipation, 
which  are  apprehended  to  the  dignity  and  modesty  of  the  sex,  are 
for  the  most  part  chimerical,  and  the  dangers  from  the  competi¬ 
tion  not  even  worth  mentioning.  For  if,  as  so  many  men  main¬ 
tain,  woman,  by  reason  of  her  weaker  nature,  cannot  stand  the 
strain  of  competition  with  man,  then  surely  the  latter  has  little 
to  fear  from  such  competition;  but  if,  as  we  have  seen  history 
has  shown  frequently,  woman  can  stand  the  strain  of  the  compe¬ 
tition,  and  if  so  many  highly  cultivated  nations  think  women 
capable  of  ruling  a  State  and  therefore  admit  them  to  the  sue- 


LUDWIG  BUCHNER  675 

cession,  why  should  they  not  also  be  allowed  to  aspire  to  less 
elevated  positions  of  responsibility  ? 

In  every  way  it  would  be  a  benefit  to  society  were  the  many 
powers  of  woman  which  now  lie  fallow  permitted  to  be  cultivated 
and  to  bring  forth  their  proper  fruits.  How  many  women,  both 
in  and  out  of  the  married  state,  now  wear  out  their  hearts  in 
bitterness  for  want  of  some  useful  occupation,  and  how  many  of 
the  complaints  of  hysteria  and  weak  nerves  owe  their  origin,  at 
least  in  part,  to  this  cause! 

Women  so  placed  either  fall  into  a  state  of  fatal  idleness 
which  is  considered  a  necessity  to  the  social  position,  or  seek 
compensation  in  gossip,  in  love  of  dress,  and  in  toying  with  all 
sorts  of  unworthy  objects;  and  if  four-fifths  or  even  nine-tenths 
of  women  find  a  sufficient  object  in  life  in  the  management  of 
their  own  households,  yet  there  still  remains  a  large  fraction  of 
the  sex  for  whom  this  is  not  the  case. 

There  are,  as  is  well  known,  in  nearly  all  European  States^ 
more  women  than  men,  an  excess  which  on  the  whole  is  esti¬ 
mated  at  one  million.  To  this  we  must  add  the  increasing  diffi¬ 
culty  of  material  existence,  the  continual  augmentation  of  the 
unmarried  state,  and  the  strain  on  the  fathers  of  families  owing 
to  their  having  to  bear  the  entire  burden  of  the  support  of  their 
children,  so  that,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  the  number  of  unmarried, 
women  will  be  ever  on  the  increase.  What,  then,  is  to  become 
of  these  ?  Or  of  those  deprived  of  the  husbands  who  now  main¬ 
tain  them  ?  Or,  finally,  of  those  women  who  are  animated  by 
the  higher  intellectual  activities  and  who  prefer  personal  inde¬ 
pendence,  even  if  accompanied  by  work,  to  the  chances  of  an  un¬ 
certain  marriage  ?  Certainly  no  one  can  deny  that  the  unmarried 
state  is  ten  times  preferable  to  a  bad  or  uncertain  marriage;  yet 
at  present,  owing  to  the  iron  hand  of  prejudice,  there  are  few 
things  so  much  dreaded  by  girls  as  the  prospect  of  remaining 
unmarried. 

In  America  it  is  otherwise,  and  in  Boston  particularly  there 
are  said  to  be  not  a  few  women  who  systematically  shun  mar¬ 
riage  in  order  to  enhance  the  value  of  their  powers  in  all  kinds 
of  useful  employments.  Nor  is  the  struggle  which  American 
women  wage  with  singular  energy  and  persistence  for  their  eman¬ 
cipation,  but  particularly  for  the  acquisition  of  a  right  to  the  po¬ 
litical  vote,  in  any  way  so  ridiculous  as  European  papers  love  to 
picture  it;  for  with  what  feelings  must  a  highly  educated  Ameri- 


676 


LUDWIG  BUCHNER 


can  woman  view  a  dirty,  idiotic  negro  shoeblack  or  street  sweeper 
going  to  the  ballot  box,  while  she  herself  remains  excluded  from 
it!  All  this  with  us,  too,  would  be  quite  different  if  woman  were 
given  the  opportunity  to  develop  her  powers  and  capacities  in  all 
directions  just  as  freely  as  the  man;  if  the  path  to  independence 
were  not  closed  to  her,  either  by  custom,  usage,  or  statute;  if  she 
stood  face  to  face  with  man  as  his  equal  by  right  and  by  birth. 
Then,  too,  that  boundless  fear  of  the  unmarried  state,  which  at 
present  still  dominates  the  natures  of  our  women,  and  which  has 
already  done  so  much  mischief,  would  disappear.  The  number, 
too,  of  unhappy  marriages  would  diminish,  and  with  it  ameliora¬ 
tion  in  the  conjugal  life  and  the  general  welfare  altogether  be 
brought  about.  Liberty,  spontaneity,  and  complete  reciprocity 
form  the  vital  air  in  which  happy  marriages  and  those  promoting 
the  general  good  alone  can  thrive. 

We  close  this  article  with  the  impressive  words  of  Raden- 
hausen,  the  spirited  writer  of  (<  Isis  }> :  — 

<(We  men  must  accustom  ourselves  to  look  on  and  to  treat  the 
female  half  of  mankind  not  as  a  means  for  the  use  and  enjoyment 
of  men,  but  as  our  equals. ® 

From  an  essay  in  the  New  Review. 


677 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 

(1821-1862) 

Sne  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Henry  Thomas  Buckle,  easily  attained  immediate  eminence, 
and  failed  of  enduring  greatness  only  because  of  the  same 
physical  infirmities  which  brought  him  premature  death.  The  theory 
which  shaped  his  (<  History  of  Civilization  in  England »  explains  hu¬ 
man  life  and  history  as  far  as  life  can  be  explained  at  all  by  our 
knowledge  of  the  laws  governing  the  carbon,  oxygen  hydrogen,  and 
nitrogen  which  are  the  determining  elements  in  the  constitution  of 
the  physical  man.  It  is  true  and  of  the  utmost  importance  that  an 
atomic  value  of  oxygen,  more  or  less,  added  to  or  subtracted  from 
the  atmosphere  which  environs  us,  might  change  the  course  of  human 
history.  With  a  preponderance  of  nitrogen,  the  race  might  become 
dull  and  stupid,  gravitating  through  inert  sensuality  towards  final  ex¬ 
tinction.  With  an  excess  of  oxygen,  history  might  become  at  all  times 
such  a  wild  debauch  of  fire  and  sword  as  it  was  in  the  Napoleonic  wars, 
until  at  last  the  race,  consumed  by  its  own  passions  and  corroded  by 
a  fierce  atmosphere,  might  disappear  in  such  a  Ragnarok  of  self- 
destruction  as  that  to  which,  from  Judea  to  Iceland,  its  prophets  have 
looked  forward.  An  increasing  knowledge  of  science  makes  this  pos¬ 
sible  effect  of  environment  self-evident.  It  becomes  not  less  self-evident 
on  investigation  that  soil,  climate,  food,  and  all  the  aspects  of  nature, 
influence  human  life  and  help  to  make  human  history.  As  far  as  he 
forced  a  more  truly  scientific  study  of  history  as  it  is  made  by  the 
action  and  reaction  on  each  other  of  men  as  individuals  and  in  mass, 
Buckle  did  a  great  service  to  science  and  to  literature.  As  far  as 
he  was  one-sided  in  failing  to  consider  the  possibilities  of  individual 
reaction  against  environment,  of  the  strength  of  individual  will  in 
its  relations  to  the  supersensual,  and  of  the  determinate  individual 
purpose  which,  as  in  his  own  case,  masters  circumstance  or  else  dis¬ 
organizes  the  physical  body  in  the  attempt,  he  failed  of  the  perma¬ 
nent  influence  on  the  intellect  of  civilization  which  was  possible  for 
him.  His  influence  has  been  great,  however,  for  the  publication  of 
his  <(  History  of  Civilization  in  England })  raised  him  from  obscurity 
to  a  fame  which  soon  became  as  extensive  as  civilization  itself.  The 
scheme  of  the  work  as  it  shaped  the  first  volume  was  too  great  for 
his  physical  powers  of  accomplishment,  and  he  died  without  realizing 


6  78 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


it.  He  left  nothing  else  which  compares  with  the  first  volume  of  his 
<(  History  of  Civilization,”  except  such  occasional  essays  as  that  in 
which  he  reviews  Mill  on  «  Liberty. »  There  he  shows  the  quality  of 
his  intellect  in  sentences  which  the  intensity  of  his  conviction  makes 
piercing  with  a  power  of  penetration  beyond  that  possible  for  mere 
logic.  (<  Liberty, ”  he  says,  <(is  the  one  thing  most  essential  to  the 
right  development  of  individuals  and  to  the  real  grandeur  of  nations. 
It  is  a  product  of  knowledge  when  knowledge  advances  in  a  healthy 
and  regular  manner;  but  if  under  certain  unhappy  circumstances  it 
is  opposed  by  what  seems  to  be  knowledge,  then,  in  God’s  name,  let 
knowledge  perish  and  liberty  be  preserved.” 

Buckle  was  born  in  Kent,  England,  November  24th,  1821.  His 
family  was  wealthy,  but,  as  his  constitution  was  delicate,  he  escaped 
the  formal  English  academic  training  which  might  have  stereotyped 
his  intellect.  Educated  at  home,  and  having  an  ample  fortune,  he 
lived  surrounded  by  books  which  he  used  under  the  inspiration  of 
his  desire  to  produce  a  great  historical  work  adequate  for  the  ex¬ 
planation  of  human  history  from  the  standpoint  of  nineteenth-century 
science.  (<  The  History  of  Civilization  in  England, ”  the  first  volume 
of  which  appeared  in  1857,  was  the  result.  A  second  volume  fol¬ 
lowed  it,  but  Buckle’s  death,  May  29th,  1862,  left  unachieved  the  his¬ 
tory  of  civilization  as  a  whole,  which,  had  he  lived,  he  might  have 
attempted.  W.  V.  B. 


LIBERTY  A  SUPREME  GOOD 

Liberty  is  the  one  thing  most  essential  to  the  right  develop¬ 
ment  of  individuals  and  to  the  real  grandeur  of  nations. 
It  is  a  product  of  knowledge  when  knowledge  advances  in 
a  healthy  and  regular  manner;  but  if  under  certain  unhappy  cir¬ 
cumstances  it  is  opposed  by  what  seems  to  be  knowledge,  then, 
in  God’s  name,  let  knowledge  perish  and  liberty  be  preserved. 
Liberty  is  not  a  means  to  an  end,  it  is  an  end  itself.  To  secure 
it,  to  enlarge  it,  and  to  diffuse  it,  should  be  the  main  object  of 
all  social  arrangements  and  of  all  political  contrivances.  None 
but  a  pedant  or  a  tyrant  can  put  science  or  literature  in  com¬ 
petition  with  it.  Within  certain  limits,  and  very  small  limits 
too,  it  is  the  inalienable  prerogative  of  man,  of  which  no  force 
of  circumstances  and  no  lapse  of  time  can  deprive  him.  He  has 
no  right  to  barter  it  away  even  from  himself,  still  less  from  his 
children.  It  is  the  foundation  of  all  self-respect,  and  without 
it  the  great  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility  would  degenerate  into 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


679 


a  lie  and  a  juggle.  It  is  a  sacred  deposit,  and  the  love  of  it  is 
a  holy  instinct  engraven  on  our  hearts.  And  if  it  could  be  shown 
that  the  tendency  of  advancing  knowledge  is  to  encroach  upon 
it;  if  it  could  be  proved  that  in  the  march  of  what  we  call  civ¬ 
ilization,  the  desire  for  liberty  did  necessarily  decline,  and  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  liberty  become  less  frequent;  if  this  could  be  made 
apparent,  I  for  one  should  wish  that  the  human  race  might  halt 
in  its  career,  and  that  we  might  recede  step  by  step,  so  that  the 
very  trophies  and  memory  of  our  glory  should  vanish,  sooner 
than  that  men  were  bribed  by  their  splendor  to  forget  the  senti¬ 
ment  of  their  own  personal  dignity. 

But  it  cannot  be.  Surely  it  cannot  be  that  we,  improving  in 
all  other  things,  should  be  retrograding  in  the  most  essential. 
Yet,  among  thinkers  of  great  depth  and  authority,  there  is  a 
fear  that  such  is  the  case.  With  that  fear  I  cannot  agree;  but 
the  existence  of  the  fear,  and  the  discussions  to  which  it  has 
led  and  will  lead  are  extremely  salutary,  as  calling  our  attention 
to  an  evil  which  in  the  eagerness  of  our  advance  we  might  other¬ 
wise  overlook.  We  are  stepping  on  at  a  rate  of  which  no  previ¬ 
ous  example  has  been  seen;  and  it  is  good  that,  amid  the  pride 
and  flush  of  our  prosperity,  we  should  be  made  to  inquire  what 
price  we  have  paid  for  our  success.  Let  us  compute  the  cost 
as  well  as  the  gain.  Before  we  announce  our  fortune  we  should 
balance  our  books.  Every  one,  therefore,  should  rejoice  at  the 
appearance  of  a  work  in  which  for  the  first  time  the  great  ques¬ 
tion  of  liberty  is  unfolded  in  all  its  dimensions,  considered  on 
every  side  and  from  every  aspect,  and  brought  to  bear  upon  our 
present  condition  with  a  steadiness  of  hand  and  a  clearness  of 
purpose  which  they  will  most  admire  who  are  most  accustomed 
to  reflect  on  this  difficult  and  complicated  topic. 

In  the  actual  state  of  the  world,  Mr.  Mill  rightly  considers 
that  the  least  important  part  of  the  question  of  liberty  is  that 
which  concerns  the  relation  between  subjects  and  rulers.  On  this 
point,  notwithstanding  the  momentary  ascendency  of  despotism 
on  the  Continent,  there  is,  I  believe,  nothing  to  dread.  In  France 
and  Germany  the  bodies  of  men  are  enslaved,  but  not  their 
minds.  Nearly  all  the  intellect  of  Europe  is  arrayed  against 
tyranny,  and  the  ultimate  result  of  such  a  struggle  can  hardly 
be  doubted.  The  immense  armies  which  are  maintained,  and 
which  some  mention  as  a  proof  that  the  love  of  war  is  increas¬ 
ing  instead  of  diminishing,  are  merely  an  evidence  that  the  gov- 


6So 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


erning  classes  distrust  and  suspect  the  future,  and  know  that 
their  real  danger  is  to  be  found  not  abroad,  but  at  home.  They 
fear  revolution  far  more  than  invasion.  The  state  of  foreign 
affairs  is  their  pretense  for  arming;  the  state  of  public  opinion 
is  the  cause.  And  right  glad  they  are  to  find  a  decent  pretext 
for  protecting  themselves  from  that  punishment  which  many  of 
them  richly  deserve.  But  I  cannot  understand  how  any  one  who 
has  carefully  studied  the  march  of  the  European  mind,  and  has 
seen  it  triumph  over  obstacles  ten  times  more  formidable  than 
these,  can  really  apprehend  that  the  liberties  of  Europe  will  ulti¬ 
mately  fall  before  those  who  now  threaten  their  existence.  When 
the  spirit  of  freedom  was  far  less  strong  and  less  universal,  the 
task  was  tried,  and  tried  in  vain.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed 
that  the  monarchical  principle,  decrepit  as  it  now  is,  and  stripped 
of  that  dogma  of  divine  right  which  long  upheld  it,  can  eventu¬ 
ally  withstand  the  pressure  of  those  general  causes  which,  for 
three  centuries,  have  marked  it  for  destruction.  And,  since  des¬ 
potism  has  chosen  the  institution  of  monarchy  as  that  under 
which  it  seeks  a  shelter,  and  for  which  it  will  fight  its  last  battle, 
we  may  fairly  assume  that  the  danger  is  less  imminent  than  is 
commonly  imagined,  and  that  they  who  rely  on  an  old  and  en¬ 
feebled  principle,  with  which  neither  the  religion  nor  the  affec¬ 
tions  of  men  are  associated  as  of  yore,  will  find  that  they  are 
leaning  on  a  broken  reed,  and  that  the  sceptre  of  their  power 
will  pass  from  them. 

I  cannot,  therefore,  participate  in  the  feelings  of  those  whe 
look  with  apprehensions  at  the  present  condition  of  Europe. 
Mr.  Mill  would,  perhaps,  take  a  less  sanguine  view;  but  it  is  ob¬ 
servable  that  the  greater  part  of  his  defense  of  liberty  is  not 
directed  against  political  tyranny.  There  is,  however,  another 
sort  of  tyranny  which  is  far  more  insidious,  and  against  which 
he  has  chiefly  bent  his  efforts.  This  is  the  despotism  of  custom, 
to  which  ordinary  minds  entirely  succumb,  and  before  which 
even  strong  minds  quail.  But  custom  being  merely  the  product 
of  public  opinion,  or  rather  its  external  manifestation,  the  two 
principles  of  custom  and  opinion  must  be  considered  together; 
and  I  will  briefly  state  how,  according  to  Mr.  Mill,  their  joint 
action  is  producing  serious  mischief,  and  is  threatening  mischief 
more  serious  still. 

The  proposition  which  Mr.  Mill  undertakes  to  establish  is  that 
society,  whether  acting  by  the  legislature  or  by  the  influence  of 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


68 1 

public  opinion,  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  conduct  of  any 
individual  for  the  sake  of  his  own  good.  Society  may  interfere 
with  him  for  their  good,  not  for  his.  If  his  actions  hurt  them, 
he  is,  under  certain  circumstances,  amenable  to  their  authority; 
if  they  only  hurt  himself,  he  is  never  amenable.  The  proposition, 
thus  stated,  will  be  acceded  to  by  many  persons  who,  in  practice, 
repudiate  it  every  day  of  their  lives.  The  ridicule  which  is  cast 
upon  whoever  deviates  from  an  established  custom,  however  tri¬ 
fling  and  foolish  that  custom  may  be,  shows  the  determination  of 
society  to  exercise  arbitrary  sway  over  individuals.  On  the  most 
insignificant  as  well  as  on  the  most  important  matters,  rules  are 
laid  down  which  no  one  dares  to  violate,  except  in  those  extremely 
rare  cases  in  which  great  intellect,  great  wealth,  or  great  rank 
enable  a  man  rather  to  command  society  than  to  be  commanded 
by  it.  The  immense  mass  of  mankind  are,  in  regard  to  their 
usages,  in  a  state  of  social  slavery,  each  man  being  bound  under 
heavy  penalties  to  conform  to  the  standard  of  life  common  to  his 
own  class.  How  serious  those  penalties  are  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  though  innumerable  persons  complain  of  prevailing  cus¬ 
toms  and  wish  to  shake  them  off,  they  dare  not  do  so,  but  con¬ 
tinue  to  practice  them,  though  frequently  at  the  expense  of 
health,  comfort,  and  fortune.  Men,  not  cowards  in  other  respects, 
and  of  a  fair  share  of  moral  courage,  are  afraid  to  rebel  against 
this  grievous  and  exacting  tyranny.  The  consequences  of  this 
are  injurious  not  only  to  those  who  desire  to  be  freed  from  the 
thraldom,  but  also  to  those  who  do  not  desire  to  be  freed;  that 

is,  to  the  whole  of  society.  Of  these  results,  there  are  two  par¬ 
ticularly  mischievous,  and  which,  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Mill,  are 
likely  to  gain  ground,  unless  some  sudden  change  of  sentiment 
should  occur. 

The  first  mischief  is,  that  a  sufficient  number  of  experiments 
are  not  made  respecting  the  different  ways  of  living;  from  which 
it  happens  that  the  art  of  life  is  not  so  well  understood  as  it 
otherwise  would  be.  If  society  were  more  lenient  to  eccentricity, 
and  more  inclined  to  examine  what  is  unusual  than  to  laugh  at 

it,  we  should  find  that  many  courses  of  conduct  which  we  call 
whimsical,  and  which  according  to  the  ordinary  standard  are  ut¬ 
terly  irrational,  have  more  reason  in  them  than  we  are  disposed 
to  imagine.  But,  while  a  country  or  an  age  will  obstinately  in¬ 
sist  upon  condemning  all  human  conduct  which  is  not  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  manner  or  fashion  of  the  day,  deviations  from  the 


68  2 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


straight  line  will  be  rarely  hazarded.  We  are,  therefore,  pre¬ 
vented  from  knowing  how  far  such  deviations  would  be  useful. 
By  discouraging  the  experiment,  we  retard  the  knowledge.  On 
this  account,  if  on  no  other,  it  is  advisable  that  the  widest  lati¬ 
tude  should  be  given  to  unusual  actions,  which  ought  to  be  valued 
as  tests  whereby  we  may  ascertain  whether  or  not  particular 
things  are  expedient.  Of  course,  the  essentials  of  morals  are  not 
to  be  violated,  nor  the  public  peace  to  be  disturbed.  But  short 
of  this,  every  indulgence  should  be  granted.  For  progress  de¬ 
pends  upon  change ;  and  it  is  only  by  practicing  uncustomary 
things  that  we  can  discover  if  they  are  fit  to  become  customary. 

The  other  evil  which  society  inflicts  on  herself  by  her  own 
tyranny  is  still  more  serious;  and  although  I  cannot  go  with  Mr. 
Mill  in  considering  the  danger  to  be  so  imminent  as  he  does, 
there  can,  I  think,  be  little  doubt  that  it  is  the  one  weak  point 
in  modern  civilization,  and  that  it  is  the  only  thing  of  importance 
in  which,  if  we  are  not  actually  receding,  we  are  making  no  per¬ 
ceptible  advance. 

This  is  that  most  precious  and  inestimable  quality,  the  quality 
of  individuality.  That  the  increasing  authority  of  society,  if  not 
counteracted  by  other  causes,  tends  to  limit  the  exercise  of  this 
quality,  seems  indisputable.  Whether  or  not  there  are  counter¬ 
acting  causes  is  a  question  of  great  complexity,  and  could  not  be 
discussed  without  entering  into  the  general  theory  of  our  existing 
civilization.  With  the  most  unfeigned  deference  for  every  opinion 
enunciated  by  Mr.  Mill,  I  venture  to  differ  from  him  on  this 
matter,  and  to  think  that,  on  the  whole,  individuality  is  not  dimin¬ 
ishing,  and  that  so  far  as  we  can  estimate  the  future,  it  is  not 
likely  to  diminish.  But  it  would  ill  become  any  man  to  combat 
the  views  of  this  great  thinker,  without  subjecting  the  point  at 
issue  to  a  rigid  and  careful  analysis;  and  as  I  have  not  done  so, 
I  will  not  weaken  my  theory  by  advancing  imperfect  arguments 
in  its  favor,  but  will,  as  before,  confine  myself  to  stating  the  con¬ 
clusions  at  which  he  has  arrived,  after  what  has  evidently  been  a 
train  of  long  and  anxious  reflection. 

According  to  Mr.  Mill,  things  are  tending,  and  have  for  some 
time  tended,  to  lessen  the  influence  of  original  minds,  and  to 
raise  mediocrity  to  the  foremost  place.  Individuals  are  lost  in 
the  crowd.  The  world  is  ruled  not  by  them,  but  by  public  opin¬ 
ion;  and  public  opinion,  being  the  voice  of  the  many,  is  the  voice 
of  mediocrity.  Affairs  are  now  governed  by  average  men,  who 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


683 


will  not  pay  to  great  men  the  deference  that  was  formerly  yielded. 
Energy  and  originality  being  less  respected,  are  becoming  more 
rare;  and  in  England  in  particular,  real  energy  has  hardly  any 
field,  except  in  business,  where  a  large  amount  of  it  undoubt¬ 
edly  exists.  Our  greatness  is  collective,  and  depends  not  upon 
what  we  do  as  individuals,  but  upon  our  power  of  combining. 
In  every  successive  generation,  men  more  resemble  each  other  in 
all  respects.  They  are  more  alike  in  their  civil  and  political 
privileges,  in  their  habits,  in  their  tastes,  in  their  manners,  in 
their  dress,  in  what  they  see,  in  what  they  do,  in  what  they  read, 
in  what  they  think,  and  in  what  they  say.  On  all  sides  the 
process  of  assimilation  is  going  on.  Shades  of  character  are  being 
blended,  and  contrasts  of  will  are  being  reconciled.  As  a  natural 
consequence,  the  individual  life,  that  is,  the  life  which  distin¬ 
guishes  each  man  from  his  fellows,  is  perishing.  The  consolida¬ 
tion  of  the  many  destroys  the  action  of  the  few.  While  we 
amalgamate  the  mass,  we  absorb  the  unit. 

The  authority  of  society  is,  in  this  way,  ruining  society  itself. 
For  the  human  faculties  can,  for  the  most  part,  only  be  exercised 
and  disciplined  by  the  act  of  choosing;  but  he  who  does  a  thing 
merely  because  others  do  it  makes  no  choice  at  all.  Constantly 
copying  the  manners  and  opinions  of  our  contemporaries,  we  strike 
out  nothing  that  is  new;  we  follow  on  in  a  dull  and  monotonous 
uniformity.  We  go  where  others  lead.  The  field  of  option  is 
being  straightened;  the  number  of  alternatives  is  diminishing. 
And  the  result  is,  a  sensible  decay  of  that  vigor  and  raciness  of 
character,  that  diversity  and  fullness  of  life,  and  that  audacity  both 
of  conception  and  of  execution  which  marked  the  strong  men  of 
former  times,  and  enabled  them  at  once  to  improve  and  to  guide 
the  human  species 

Now  all  this  is  gone,  perhaps  never  to  return,  unless  some 
great  convulsion  should  previously  occur.  Originality  is  dying 
away,  and  is  being  replaced  by  a  spirit  of  servile  and  apish  imi¬ 
tation.  We  are  degenerating  into  machines  who  do  the  will  of 
society;  our  impulses  and  desires  are  repressed  by  a  galling  and 
artificial  code;  our  minds  are  dwarfed  and  stunted  by  the  checks 
and  limitations  to  which  we  are  perpetually  subjected. 

How,  then,  is  it  possible  to  discover  new  truths  of  real  im¬ 
portance  ?  How  is  it  possible  that  creative  thought  can  flourish 
in  so  sickly  and  tainted  an  atmosphere  ?  Genius  is  a  form  of 
originality,  if  the  originality  is  discouraged,  how  can  the  genius 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 


684 

remain  ?  It  is  hard  to  see  the  remedy  for  this  crying-  evil.  So¬ 
ciety  is  growing  so  strong  as  to  destroy  individuality;  that  is,  to 
destroy  the  very  quality  to  which  our  civilization,  and  therefore 
our  social  fabric,  is  primarily  owing. 

The  truth  is,  that  we  must  vindicate  the  right  of  each  man 
to  do  what  he  likes,  and  to  say  what  he  thinks,  to  an  extent 
much  greater  than  is  usually  supposed  to  be  either  safe  or  de¬ 
cent.  This  we  must  do  for  the  Sake  of  society,  quite  as  much 
as  for  our  own  sake.  That  society  would  be  benefited  by  a 
greater  freedom  of  action  has  been  already  shown;  and  the  same 
thing  may  be  proved  concerning  freedom  of  speech  and  of  writ¬ 
ing.  In  this  respect,  authors,  and  the  teachers  of  mankind  gener¬ 
ally,  are  far  too  timid;  while  the  state  of  public  opinion  is  far 
too  interfering.  The  remarks  which  Mr.  Mill  has  made  on  this 
are  so  exhaustive  as  to  be  unanswerable;  and  though  many  will 
call  in  question  what  he  has  said  respecting  the  decline  of  indi¬ 
viduality,  no  well-instructed  person  will  dispute  the  accuracy  of 
his  conclusions  respecting  the  need  of  an  increased  liberty  of  dis¬ 
cussion  and  of  publication. 

From  a  review  of  John  Stuart  Mill* 
on  (<  Liberty. » 


685 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 

(1686-1737) 

ustace  Budgell,  one  of  the  associates  of  Steele  and  Addison 
on  the  Spectator,  was  born  near  Exeter,  England,  August 
19th,  1686.  His  mother  was  Addison’s  first  cousin  and 

when,  after  leaving  Oxford,  he  went  to  London  to  attempt  a  living 
at  the  bar,  Addison  befriended  him.  He  soon  gave  up  law  for  lit¬ 
erature,  contributing  to  the  Tatler  and  Guardian,  as  well  as  to  the 
Spectator.  Much  of  his  writing  was  political,  with  no  permanent 
value.  When  Addison  was  in  the  Cabinet,  Budgell  held  office  under 
him  in  various  positions.  He  was  afterwards  reduced  to  desperate 
straits  and  his  enemies  accused  him  of  dishonesty  in  his  attempts  to 
escape  the  starvation  which  always  menaced  Grub  Street  in  his  day. 
It  is  certain  that  his  morals  were  doubtful  and  his  suicide  by  drown¬ 
ing  in  the  Thames  (May  4th,  1737)  is  not  a  surprising  end  to  his 
checkered  career.  Thirty-seven  of  the  Spectator  essays  were  written 
by  him.  His  style  is  often  very  close  to  that  of  Addison. 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF  WILL  HONEYCOMB 

Torva  leczna  lu pit m  sequitu r,  lupus  ipse  capellam; 

Florentem  cytisum  sequitur  lasciva  capdla. 

—  Virg.  Eel.  VI.  63. 

Lions  the  wolves,  and  wolves  the  kids  pursue, 

The  kids  sweet  thyme,  —  and  still  I  follow  you. 

—  J  Var  ton 

As  we  were  at  the  club  last  night  I  observed  that  my  old 
friend  Sir  Roger,  contrary  to  his  usual  custom,  sat  very 
silent,  and,  instead  of  minding  what  was  said  by  the  com¬ 
pany,  was  whistling  to  himself  in  a  very  thoughtful  mood,  and 
playing  with  a  cork.  I  jogged  Sir  Andrew  Freeport,  who  sat 
between  us;  and,  as  we  were  both  observing  him,  we  saw  the 
knight  shake  his  head,  and  heard  him  say  to  himself:  {<  A  foolish 
woman!  I  can’t  believe  it. w  Sir  Andrew  gave  him  a  gentle  pat 
upon  the  shoulder,  and  offered  to  lay  him  a  bottle  of  wine  that 


686 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


he  was  thinking  of  the  widow.  My  old  friend  started,  and,  re¬ 
covering  out  of  his  brown  study,  told  Sir  Andrew  that  once  in 
his  life  he  had  been  in  the  right.  In  short,  after  some  little  hes¬ 
itation,  Sir  Roger  told  us  in  the  fullness  of  his  heart,  that  he  had 
just  received  a  letter  from  his  steward,  which  acquainted  him  that 
his  old  rival  and  antagonist  in  the  country,  Sir  David  Dundrum, 
had  been  making  a  visit  to  the  widow.  (( However, ®  says  Sir 
Roger,  <(  I  can  never  think  that  she  will  have  a  man  that’s  half 
a  year  older  than  I  am,  and  a  noted  republican  into  the  bargain. }) 

Will  Honeycomb,  who  looks  upon  love  as  his  particular  prov¬ 
ince,  interrupting  our  friend  with  a  jaunty  laugh,  <(  I  thought, 
knight, })  said  he,  tt  thou  hadst  lived  long  enough  in  the  world 
not  to  pin  thy  happiness  upon  one  that  is  a  woman,  and  a  widow. 
I  think  that,  without  vanity,  I  may  pretend  to  know  as  much  of 
the  female  world  as  any  man  in  Great  Britain;  though  the  chief 
of  my  knowledge  consists  in  this,  that  they  are  not  to  be  known.  ® 
Will  immediately,  with  his  usual  fluency,  rambled  into  an  account 
of  his  own  amours.  (<  I  am  now,®  says  he,  <(  upon  the  verge  of 
fifty®  (though,  by  the  way,  we  all  knew  he  was  turned  of  three¬ 
score).  (<You  may  easily  guess, )}  continued  Will,  “that  I  have 
not  lived  so  long  in  the  world  without  having  had  some  thoughts 
of  settling  in  it,  as  the  phrase  is.  To  tell  you  truly,  I  have 
several  times  tried  my  fortune  that  way,  though  I  cannot  much 
boast  of  my  success. 

*  I  made  my  first  addresses  to  a  young  lady  in  the  country ; 
but  when  I  thought  things  were  pretty  well  drawing  to  a  con¬ 
clusion,  her  father  happening  to  hear  that  I  had  formerly  boarded 
with  a  surgeon,  the  old  put  forbade  me  his  house,  and  within  a 
fortnight  after  married  his  daughter  to  a  fox  hunter  in  the  neigh¬ 
borhood. 

“  I  made  my  next  application  to  a  widow,  and  attacked  her  so 
briskly  that  I  thought  myself  within  a  fortnight  of  her.  As  I 
waited  upon  her  one  morning  she  told  me  that  she  intended  to 
keep  her  ready  money  and  jointure  in  her  own  hand,  and  desired 
me  to  call  upon  her  attorney  in  Lyon’s- Inn,  who  would  adjust 
with  me  what  it  was  proper  for  me  to  add  to  it.  I  was  so  re¬ 
buffed  by  this  overture  that  I  never  inquired  either  for  her  or 
her  attorney  afterwards. 

“A  few  months  after,  I  addressed  myself  to  a  young  lady  who 
was  an  only  daughter,  and  of  a  good  family.  I  danced  with  her 
at  several  balls,  squeezed  her  by  the  hand,  said  soft  things  to 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


687 


her,  and  in  short  made  no  doubt  of  her  heart;  and,  though  my 
fortune  was  not  equal  to  hers,  I  was  in  hopes  that  her  fond  father 
would  not  deny  her  the  man  she  had  fixed  her  affections  upon. 
But  as  I  went  one  day  to  the  house,  in  order  to  break  the  matter 
to  him,  I  found  the  whole  family  in  confusion,  and  heard,  to  my 
unspeakable  surprise,  that  Miss  Jenny  was  that  very  morning  run 
away  with  the  butler. 

<(  I  then  courted  a  second  widow,  and  am  at  a  loss  to  this  day 
how  I  came  to  miss  her,  for  she  had  often  commended  my  per¬ 
son  and  behavior.  Her  maid,  indeed,  told  me  one  day  that  her 
mistress  said  she  never  saw  a  gentleman  with  such  a  spindle  pair 
of  legs  as  Mr.  Honeycomb. 

(<  After  this  I  laid  siege  to  four  heiresses  successively,  and, 
being  a  handsome  young  dog  in  those  days,  quickly  made  a  breach 
in  their  hearts;  but  I  don’t  know  how  it  came  to  pass,  though 
I  seldom  failed  of  getting  the  daughter’s  consent,  I  could  never 
in  my  life  get  the  old  people  on  my  side. 

(( I  could  give  you  an  account  of  a  thousand  other  unsuccess¬ 
ful  attempts,  particularly  of  one  which  I  made  some  years  since 
upon  an  old  woman,  whom  I  had  certainly  borne  away  with  fly¬ 
ing  colors  if  her  relations  had  not  come  pouring  in  to  her  assist¬ 
ance  from  all  parts  of  England;  nay,  I  believe  I  should  have  got 
her  at  last  had  not  she  been  carried  off  by  a  hard  frost. ® 

As  Will’s  transitions  are  extremely  quick,  he  turned  from  Sir 
Roger,  and,  applying  himself  to  me,  told  me  there  was  a  passage 
in  the  book  I  had  considered  last  Saturday  which  deserved  to  be 
writ  in  letters  of  gold;  and  taking  out  a  pocket  Milton,  read  the 
following  lines,  which  are  part  of  one  of  Adam’s  speeches  to  Eve 
after  the  fall:  — 

(< - Oh !  why  did  our 

Creator  wise!  that  peopled  highest  heaven 
With  spirits  masculine,  create  at  last 
This  novelty  on  earth,  this  fair  defect 
Of  nature,  and  not  fill  the  world  at  once 
With  men,  as  angels,  without  feminine  ? 

Or  find  some  other  way  to  generate 
Mankind  ?  This  mischief  had  not  then  befall’n, 

And  more  that  shall  befall,  innumerable 
Disturbances  on  earth,  through  female  snares, 

And  straight  conjunction  with  this  sex:  for  either 
He  shall  never  find  out  fit  mate;  but  such 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


<688 

As  some  misfortune  brings  him,  or  mistake; 

Or  whom  he  wishes  most  shall  seldom  gain, 

Through  her  perverseness;  but  shall  see  her  gain’d 
By  a  far  worse :  or,  if  she  love,  withheld 
By  parents;  or  his  happiest  choice  too  late 
Shall  meet  already  link’d,  and  wedlock  bound 
To  a  fell  adversary,  his  hate  or  shame: 

Which  infinite  calamity  shall  cause 

To  human  life,  and  household  peace  confound.  * 

Sir  Roger  listened  to  this  passage  with  great  attention;  and, 
desiring  Mr.  Honeycomb  to  fold  down  a  leaf  at  the  place,  and 
lend  him  his  book,  the  knight  put  it  up  in  his  pocket  and  told 
us  that  he  would  read  over  these  verses  again  before  he  went 
to  bed. 

Complete.  From  the  Spectator — No.  359. 


LOVE  AFTER  MARRIAGE 

Candida  perpetuo  reside ,  concordia ,  lecto, 

Tamque  pari  semper  sit  Venus  cequa  jugo. 

Di/igat  ilia  senem  quondai?i;  sed  et  ipsa  marito , 

Tunc  quoque  cum  fuerit  no7i  videatur  anus. 

—  Mart.  Epig.  xiii. ,  Lib.  IV.  7. 

Perpetual  harmony  their  bed  attend, 

And  Venus  still  the  well-match’d  pair  befriend. 

May  she,  when  time  has  sunk  him  into  years, 

Love  her  old  man,  and  cherish  his  white  hairs; 

Nor  he  perceive  her  charms  thro’  age  decay, 

But  think  each  happy  sun  his  bridal  day. 

I  have  somewhere  met  with  a  fable  that  made  Wealth  the  father 
of  Love.  It  is  certain  that  a  mind  ought  at  least  to  be  free 
from  the  apprehensions  of  want  and  poverty  before  it  can 
fully  attend  to  all  the  softnesses  and  endearments  of  this  passion; 
notwithstanding,  we  see  multitudes  of  married  people  who  are 
utter  strangers  to  this  delightful  passion  amidst  all  the  affluence 
of  the  most  plentiful  fortunes. 

It  is  not  sufficient  to  make  a  marriage  happy  that  the  humors 
of  two  people  should  be  alike.  I  could  instance  an  hundred  pair 
who  have  not  the  least  sentiment  of  love  remaining  for  one  an¬ 
other,  yet  are  so  like  in  their  humors,  that,  if  they  were  not 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL  689 

already  married,  the  whole  world  would  design  them  for  man  and 
wife. 

The  spirit  of  love  has  something  so  extremely  fine  in  it  that 
it  is  very  often  disturbed  and  lost  by  some  little  accidents,  which 
the  careless  and  unpolite  never  attend  to,  until  it  is  gone  past 
recovery. 

Nothing  has  more  contributed  to  banish  it  from  a  married 
state  than  too  great  a  familiarity  and  laying  aside  the  common 
rules  of  decency.  Though  I  could  give  instances  of  this  in  sev¬ 
eral  particulars,  I  shall  only  mention  that  of  dress.  The  beaux 
and  belles  about  town,  who  dress  purely  to  catch  one  another, 
think  there  is  no  further  occasion  for  the  bait  when  their  first 
design  has  succeeded.  But  besides  the  too  common  fault,  in 
point  of  neatness,  there  are  several  others  which  I  do  not  remem¬ 
ber  to  have  seen  touched  upon,  but  in  one  of  our  modern  come¬ 
dies,  where  a  French  woman  offering  to  undress  and  dress  herself 
before  the  lover  of  the  play,  and  assuring  her  mistress  that  it 
was  very  usual  in  France,  the  lady  tells  her  that  is  a  secret  in 
dress  she  never  knew  before,  and  that  she  was  so  unpolished  an 
English  woman  as  to  resolve  never  to  learn  to  dress  even  before 
her  husband. 

There  is  something  so  gross  in  the  carriage  of  some  wives 
that  they  lose  their  husbands’  hearts  for  faults  which,  if  a  man 
has  either  good  nature  or  good  breeding,  he  knows  not  how  to 
tell  them  of.  I  am  afraid,  indeed,  the  ladies  are  generally  most 
faulty  in  this  particular;  who,  at  their  first  giving  into  love,  find 
the  way  so  smooth  and  pleasant  that  they  fancy  it  is  scarce 
possible  to  be  tired  in  it. 

There  is  so  much  nicety  and  discretion  required  to  keep  love 
alive  after  marriage,  and  make  conversation  still  new  and  agree¬ 
able  after  twenty  or  thirty  years,  that  I  know  nothing  which 
seems  readily  to  promise  it,  but  an  earnest  endeavor  to  please 
on  both  sides,  and  superior  good  sense  on  the  part  of  the  man. 

By  a  man  of  sense  I  mean  one  acquainted  with  business  and 
letters. 

A  woman  very  much  settles  her  esteem  for  a  man  according 
to  the  figure  he  makes  in  the  world  and  the  character  he  bears 
among  his  own  sex.  As  learning  is  the  chief  advantage  we  have 
over  them,  it  is,  methinks,  as  scandalous  and  inexcusable  for  a 
man  of  fortune  to  be  illiterate  as  for  a  woman  not  to  know  how 
to  behave  herself  on  the  most  ordinary  occasions.  It  is'  this 
n — 44 


6  go 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


which  sets  the  two  sexes  at  the  greatest  distance;  a  woman  is 
vexed  and  surprised  to  find  nothing  more  in  the  conversation  of 
a  man  than  in  the  common  tattle  of  her  own  sex. 

Some  small  engagement,  at  least  in  business,  not  only  sets  a 
man’s  talents  in  the  fairest  light,  and  allots  him  a  part  to  act  in 
which  a  wife  cannot  well  intermeddle,  but  gives  frequent  occa¬ 
sion  for  those  little  absences,  which,  whatever  seeming  uneasi¬ 
ness  they  may  give,  are  some  of  the  best  preservatives  of  love 
and  desire. 

The  fair  sex  are  so  conscious  to  themselves  that  they  have 
nothing  in  them  which  can  deserve  entirely  to  engross  the  whole 
man,  that  they  heartily  despise  one  who,  to  use  their  own  ex¬ 
pression,  is  always  hanging  at  their  apron  strings. 

Lsetitia  is  pretty,  modest,  tender,  and  has  sense  enough;  she 
married  Erastus,  who  is  in  a  post  of  some  business,  and  has  a 
general  taste  in  most  parts  of  polite  learning.  Lsetitia,  wherever 
she  visits,  has  the  pleasure  to  hear  of  something  which  was 
handsomely  said  or  done  by  Erastus.  Erastus,  since  his  marriage, 
is  more  gay  in  his  dress  than  ever,  and  in  all  companies  is  as 
complaisant  to  Lsetitia  as  to  any  other  lady.  I  have  seen  him 
give  her  her  fan  when  it  has  dropped,  with  all  the  gallantry  of 
a  lover.  When  they  take  the  air  together  Erastus  is  continu¬ 
ally  improving  her  thoughts,  and,  with  a  turn  of  wit  and  spirit 
which  is  peculiar  to  him,  giving  her  an  insight  into  things  she 
had  no  notions  of  before.  Lsetitia  is  transported  at  having  a 
new  world  thus  opened  to  her,  and  hangs  upon  the  man  that 
gives  her  such  agreeable  information.  Erastus  has  carried  this 
point  still  further,  as  he  makes  her  daily  not  only  more  fond  of 
him,  but  infinitely  more  satisfied  with  herself.  Erastus  finds  a 
justness  or  beauty  in  whatever  she  says  or  observes,  that  Laetitia 
herself  was  not  aware  of;  and  by  his  assistance  she  has  discov¬ 
ered  an  hundred  good  qualities  and  accomplishments  in  herself 
which  she  never  before  once  dreamed  of.  Erastus,  with  the  most 
artful  complaisance  in  the  world,  by  several  remote  hints,  finds 
the  means  to  make  her  say  or  propose  almost  whatever  he  has  a 
mind  to,  which  he  always  receives  as  her  own  discovery,  and 
gives  her  all  the  reputation  of  it. 

Erastus  has  a  perfect  taste  in  painting,  and  carried  Lsetitia 
with  him  the  other  day  to  see  a  collection  of  pictures.  I  some¬ 
times  visit  this  happy  couple.  As  we  were  last  week  walking  in 
the  long  gallery  before  dinner, — <(  I  have  lately  laid  out  some 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


691 


money  in  paintings,”  says  Erastus;  I  bought  that  Venus  and 
Adonis  purely  upon  Laetitia’s  judgment.  It  cost  me  threescore 
guineas,  and  I  was  this  morning  offered  an  hundred  for  it.”  I 
turned  towards  Laetitia,  and  saw  her  cheeks  glow  with  pleasure, 
while  at  the  same  time  she  cast  a  look  upon  Erastus,  the  most 
tender  and  affectionate  I  ever  beheld. 

Flavilla  married  Tom  Tawdry.  She  was  taken  with  his  laced 
coat  and  rich  sword  knot;  she  has  the  mortification  to  see  Tom 
despised  by  all  the  worthy  part  of  his  own  sex.  Tom  has  nothing 
to  do  after  dinner  but  to  determine  whether  he  will  pare  his  nails 
at  Saint  James’s,  White’s,  or  his  own  house.  He  has  said  nothing 
to  Flavilla  since  they  were  married  which  she  might  not  have 
heard  as  well  from  her  own  woman.  He,  however,  takes  great 
care  to  keep  up  the  saucy  ill-natured  authority  of  a  husband. 
Whatever  Flavilla  happens  to  assert,  Tom  immediately  contradicts 
with  an  oath  by  way  of  preface,  and,  <(  My  dear,  I  must  tell  you 
you  talk  most  confoundedly  silly.  ”  Flavilla  had  a  heart  naturally 
as  well  disposed  for  all  the  tenderness  of  love  as  that  of  Laetitia; 
but  as  love  seldom  continues  long  after  esteem,  it  is  difficult  to 
determine,  at  present,  whether  the  unhappy  Flavilla  hates  or 
despises  the  person  whom  she  is  obliged  to  lead  her  whole  life 
with. 

Complete.  From  the  Spectator. 


MR.  RIGADOON’S  DANCING  SCHOOL 

Saltare  elegantius  quarn  necesse  est  pr oboe. — Sallust. 

Too  fine  a  dancer  for  a  virtuous  woman. 

Lucian,  in  one  of  his  dialogues,  introduces  a  philosopher  chid¬ 
ing  his  friend  for  his  being  a  lover  of  dancing  and  a  fre¬ 
quenter  of  balls.  The  other  undertakes  the  defense  of  his 
favorite  diversion,  which  he  says  was  at  first  invented  by  the 
goddess  Rhea,  and  preserved  -the  life  of  Jupiter  himself  from 
the  cruelty  of  his  father  Saturn.  He  proceeds  to  show  that  it 
had  been  approved  by  the  greatest  men  in  all  ages;  that  Homer 
calls  Merion  a  fine  dancer;  and  says  that  the  graceful  mien  and 
great  agility  which  he  had  acquired  by  that  exercise  distinguished 
him  above  the  rest  in  the  armies  both  of  Greeks  and  Trojans. 


692 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


He  adds  that  Pyrrhus  gained  more  reputation  by  inventing 
the  dance  which  is  called  after  his  name  than  by  all  his  other 
actions;  that  the  Lacedaemonians,  who  were  the  bravest  people 
in  Greece,  gave  great  encouragement  to  this  diversion,  and  made 
their  Hormus  (a  dance  much  resembling  the  French  brawl) 
famous  over  all  Asia;  that  there  were  still  extant  some  Thessa¬ 
lian  statues  erected  to  the  honor  of  their  best  dancers;  and  that 
he  wondered  how  his  brother  philosopher  could  declare  himself 
against  the  opinions  of  those  two  persons,  whom  he  professed  so 
much  to  admire,  Homer  and  Hesiod, —  the  latter  of  whom  com¬ 
pares  valor  and  dancing  together,  and  says  that  <(the  gods  have 
bestowed  fortitude  on  some  men,  and  on  others  a  disposition  for 
dancing.  * 

Lastly,  he  puts  him  in  mind  that  Socrates  (who,  in  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  Apollo,  was  the  wisest  of  men)  was  not  only  a  professed 
admirer  of  this  exercise  in  others,  but  learned  it  himself  when 
he  was  an  old  man. 

The  morose  philosopher  is  so  much  affected  by  these  and 
some  other  authorities  that  he  becomes  a  convert  to  his  friend, 
and  desires  he  would  take  him  with  him  when  he  went  to  his 
next  ball. 

I  love  to  shelter  myself  under  the  examples  of  great  men; 
and  I  think  I  have  sufficiently  showed  that  it  is  not  below  the 
dignity  of  these  my  speculations  to  take  notice  of  the  following 
letter,  which,  I  suppose,  is  sent  me  by  some  substantial  trades¬ 
man  about  ’Change: — 

Sir: 

I  am  a  man  in  years,  and  by  an  honest  industry  in  the  world 
have  acquired  enough  to  give  my  children  a  liberal  education,  though 
I  was  an  utter  stranger  to  it  myself.  My  eldest  daughter,  a  girl  of 
sixteen,  has  for  some  time  been  under  the  tuition  of  Monsieur  Riga- 
doon,  a  dancing  master  in  the  city;  and  I  was  prevailed  upon  by  her 
and  her  mother  to  go  last  night  to  one  of  his  balls.  I  must  own  to 
you,  sir,  that  having  never  been  to  any  such  place  before,  I  was  very 
much  pleased  and  surprised  with  that  part  of  his  entertainment 
which  he  called  French  dancing.  There  were  several  young  men 
and  women,  whose  limbs  seemed  to  have  no  other  motion  but  purely 
what  the  music  gave  them.  After  this  part  was  over,  they  began  a 
diversion  which  they  call  country  dancing,  and  wherein  there  were 
also  some  things  not  disagreeable,  and  divers  emblematical  figures, 
composed,  as  I  guess,  by  wise  men  for  the  instruction  of  youth. 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


693 


Among  the  rest,  I  observed  one  which  I  think  they  call  <(Hunt 
the  Squirrel, *  in  which  while  the  woman  flies  the  man  pursues  her; 
but  as  soon  as  she  turns,  he  runs  away,  and  she  is  obliged  to  follow. 

The  moral  of  this  dance  does,  I  think,  very  aptly  recommend 
modesty  and  discretion  to  the  female  sex. 

But  as  the  best  institutions  are  liable  to  corruption,  so,  sir,  I  must 
acquaint  you  that  very  great  abuses  are  crept  into  this  entertain¬ 
ment.  I  was  amazed  to  see  my  girl  handed  by,  and  handing,  young 
fellows  with  so  much  familiarity;  and  I  could  not  have  thought  it 
had  been  in  the  child.  They  very  often  made  use  of  a  most  impu¬ 
dent  and  lascivious  step  called  (<  Setting,®  which  I  know  not  how  to 
describe  to  you  but  by  telling  you  that  it  is  the  very  reverse  of 
<(Back  to  Back.”  At  last  an  impudent  young  dog  bid  the  fiddlers 
play  a  dance  called  <(Moll  Pately,”  and  after  having  made  two  or 
three  capers,  ran  to  his  partner,  locked  his  arms  in  hers,  and  whisked 
her  round  cleverly  above  ground  in  such  a  manner  that  I,  who  sat 
upon  one  of  the  lowest  benches,  saw  further  above  her  shoe  than  I 
can  think  fit  to  acquaint  you  with.  I  could  no  longer  endure  these 
enormities;  wherefore,  just  as  my  girl  was  going  to  be  made  a  whirli¬ 
gig,  I  ran  in,  seized  on  the  child,  and  carried  her  home. 

Sir,  I  am  not  yet  old  enough  to  be  a  fool.  I  suppose  this  diver¬ 
sion  might  be  at  first  invented  to  keep  up  a  good  understanding 
between  young  men  and  women,  and  so  far  I  am  not  against  it;  but 
I  shall  never  allow  of  these  things.  I  know  not  what  you  will  say 
to  this  case  at  present,  but  am  sure  had  you  been  with  me  you 
would  have  seen  matter  of  great  speculation. 

I  am,  yours,  etc. 

I  must  confess  I  am  afraid  that  my  correspondent  had  too 
much  reason  to  be  a  little  out  of  humor  at  the  treatment  of  his 
daughter,  but  I  conclude  that  he  would  have  been  much  more 
so  had  he  seen  one  of  those  kissing  dances,  in  which  Will  Honey¬ 
comb  assures  me  they  are  obliged  to  dwell  almost  a  minute  on 
the  fair  one’s  lips,  or  they  will  be  too  quick  for  the  music,  and 
dance  quite  out  of  time. 

I  am  not  able,  however,  to  give  my  final  sentence  against  this 
diversion;  and  am  of  Mr.  Cowley’s  opinion,  that  so  much  of 
dancing,  at  least,  as  belongs  to  the  behavior  and  an  handsome 
carriage  of  the  body,  is  extremely  useful,  if  not  absolutely  neces¬ 
sary. 

We  generally  form  such  ideas  of  people  at  first  sight  as  we 
are  hardly  ever  persuaded  to  lay  aside  afterwards:  for  this  rea¬ 
son  a  man  would  wish  to  have  nothing  disagreeable  or  uncomely 


694 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


in  his  approaches,  and  to  be  able  to  enter  a  room  with  a  good 
grace. 

I  might  add  that  a  moderate  knowledge  in  the  little  rules  of 
good  breeding  gives  a  man  some  assurance,  and  makes  him  easy 
in  all  companies.  For  want  of  this,  I  have  seen  a  professor  of 
a  liberal  science  at  a  loss  to  salute  a  lady;  and  a  most  excellent 
mathematician  not  able  to  determine  whether  he  should  stand  or 
sit  while  my  lord  drank  to  him. 

It  is  the  proper  business  of  a  dancing  master  to  regulate 
these  matters;  though  I  take  it  to  be  a  just  observation  that 
unless  you  add  something  of  your  own  to  what  these  fine  gen¬ 
tlemen  teach  you,  and  which  they  are  wholly  ignorant  of  them¬ 
selves,  you  will  much  sooner  get  the  character  of  an  affected  fop 
than  of  a  well-bred  man. 

As  for  country  dancing,  it  must  indeed  be  confessed  that  the 
great  familiarities  between  the  two  sexes  on  this  occasion  may 
sometimes  produce  very  dangerous  consequences ;  and  I  have 
often  thought  that  few  ladies’  hearts  are  so  obdurate  as  not  to  be 
melted  by  the  charms  of  music,  the  force  of  motion,  and  an  hand¬ 
some  young  fellow  who  is  continually  playing  before  their  eyes, 
and  convincing  them  that  he  has  the  perfect  use  of  all  his  limbs. 

But  as  this  kind  of  dance  is  the  particular  invention  of  our 
own  country,  and  as  every  one  is  more  or  less  a  proficient  in  it, 
I  would  not  discountenance  it;  but  rather  suppose  it  may  be 
practiced  innocently  by  others  as  well  as  myself,  who  am  often 
partner  to  my  landlady’s  eldest  daughter. 

From  the  Spectator. 


MODESTY  AND  ASSURANCE 

Fallit  enim  vitiuni  specie  virtutis  et  umbra. 

.  Sat.  XIV.  109. 


Vice  oft  is  hid  in  Virtue’s  fair  disguise, 

And  in  her  borrow’d  form  escapes  inquiring  eyes. 

Mr.  Locke,  in  his  treatise  of  (( Human  Understanding, ®  has 
spent  two  chapters  upon  the  abuse  of  words.  The  first 
and  most  palpable  abuse  of  words,  he  says,  is  when  they 
are  used  without  clear  and  distinct  ideas;  the  second,  when  we 
are  so  unconstant  and  unsteady  in  the  application  of  them,  that 
we  sometimes  use  them  to  signify  one  idea,  sometimes  another. 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


695 


He  adds,  that  the  result  of  our  contemplations  and  reasonings, 
while  we  have  no  precise  ideas  fixed  to  our  words,  must  needs 
be  very  confused  and  absurd.  To  avoid  this  inconvenience,  more 
especially  in  moral  discourses  where  the  same  word  should  be 
constantly  used  in  the  same  sense,  he  earnestly  recommends  the 
use  of  definitions.  (<  A  definition, w  says  he,  (<  is  the  only  way 
whereby  the  precise  meaning  of  moral  words  can  be  known. ® 
He  therefore  accuses  those  of  great  negligence  who  discourse  of 
moral  things  with  the  least  obscurity  in  the  terms  they  make 
use  of ;  since,  upon  the  ’fore-mentioned  ground,  he  does  not 
scruple  to  say  that  he  thinks  (<  morality  is  capable  of  demonstra¬ 
tion  as  well  as  the  mathematics.  * 

I  know  no  two  words  that  have  been  more  abused  by  the 
different  and  wrong  interpretations  which  are  put  upon  them 
than  these  two,  modesty  and  assurance.  To  say  such  a  one  is  a 
modest  man,  sometimes  indeed  passes  for  a  good  character;  but 
at  present  is  very  often  used  to  signify  a  sheepish,  awkward  fel¬ 
low,  who  has  neither  good  breeding,  politeness,  nor  any  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  world. 

Again,  a  man  of  assurance,  though  at  first  it  only  denoted  a 
person  of  a  free  and  open  carriage,  is  now  very  usually  applied  to 
a  profligate  wretch,  who  can  break  through  all  the  rules  of  de¬ 
cency  and  morality  without  a  blush. 

I  shall  endeavor,  therefore,  in  this  essay  to  restore  these  words 
to  their  true  meaning,  to  prevent  the  idea  of  modesty  from  be¬ 
ing  confounded  with  that  of  sheepishness,  and  to  hinder  impu¬ 
dence  from  passing  for  assurance. 

If  I  were  put  to  define  modesty  I  would  call  it  (<  the  reflection 
of  an  ingenious  mind,  either  when  a  man  has  committed  an  action 
for  which  he  censures  himself,  or  fancies  that  he  is  exposed  tQ 
the  censure  of  others.  ® 

For  this  reason  a  man  truly  modest  is  as  much  so  when  he 
is  alone  as  in  company,  and  as  subject  to  a  blush  in  his  closet 
as  when  the  eyes  of  multitudes  are  upon  him. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  met  with  any  instance  of  modesty 
with  which  I  am  so  well  pleased  as  that  celebrated  one  of  the 
young  prince  whose  father  being  a  tributary  king  to  the  Ro¬ 
mans,  had  several  complaints  laid  against  him  before  the  senate, 
as  a  tyrant  and  oppressor  of  his  subjects.  The  prince  went  to 
Rome  to  defend  his  father;  but  coming  into  the  senate  and  hear¬ 
ing  a  multitude  of  crimes  proved  upon  him,  was  so  oppressed 


696 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


when  it  came  to  his  turn  to  speak  that  he  was  unable  to  utter  a 
word.  The  story  tells  us,  that  the  Fathers  were  more  moved  at 
this  instance  of  modesty  and  ingenuity  than  they  could  have 
been  by  the  most  pathetic  oration,  and,  in  short,  pardoned  the 
guilty  father  for  this  early  promise  of  virtue  in  the  son. 

I  take  <(  assurance  to  be  the  faculty  of  possessing  a  man’s 
self,  or  of  saying  and  doing  indifferent  things  without  any  un¬ 
easiness  or  emotion  in  the  mind.”  That  which  generally  gives  a 
man  assurance  is  a  moderate  knowledge  of  the  world,  but,  above 
all,  a  mind  fixed  and  determined  in  itself  to  do  nothing  against 
the  rules  of  honor  and  decency.  An  open  and  assured  behavior 
is  the  natural  consequence  of  such  a  resolution.  A  man  thus 
armed,  if  his  words  or  actions  are  at  any  time  misrepresented, 
retires  within  himself,  and,  from  a  consciousness  of  his  own  in¬ 
tegrity,  assumes  force  enough  to  despise  the  little  censures  of 
ignorance  and  malice. 

Every  one  ought  to  cherish  and  encourage  in  himself  the 
modesty  and  assurance  I  have  here  mentioned. 

A  man  without  assurance  is  liable  to  be  made  uneasy  by  the 
folly  or  ill-nature  of  every  one  he  converses  with.  A  man  with¬ 
out  modesty  is  lost  to  all  sense  of  honor  and  virtue. 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  the  prince  above  mentioned 
possessed  both  these  qualifications  in  a  very  eminent  degree. 
Without  assurance,  he  would  never  have  undertaken  to  speak 
before  the  most  august  assembly  in  the  world;  without  modesty, 
he  would  have  pleaded  the  cause  he  had  taken  upon  him  though 
it  had  appeared  ever  so  scandalous. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  is  plain  that  modesty  and  assur¬ 
ance  are  both  amiable,  and  may  very  well  meet  in  the  same 
person.  When  they  are  thus  mixed  and  blended  together,  they 
compose  what  we  endeavor  to  express  when  we  say,  <(  a  modest 
assurance  ” ;  by  which  we  understand  the  just  mean  between  bash¬ 
fulness  and  impudence. 

I  shall  conclude  with  observing  that  as  the  same  man  may  be 
both  modest  and  assured,  so  it  is  also  possible  for  the  same  to 
be  both  impudent  and  bashful. 

We  have  frequent  instances  of  this  odd  kind  of  mixture  in 
people  of  depraved  minds  and  mean  education,  who,  though  they 
are  not  able  to  meet  a  man’s  eyes,  or  pronounce  a  sentence 
without  confusion,  can  voluntarily  commit  the  greatest  villainies 
or  most  indecent  actions. 


EUSTACE  BUDGELL 


697 


Such  a  person  seems  to  have  made  a  resolution  to  do  ill  even 
in  spite  of  himself,  and  in  defiance  of  all  those  checks  and  re¬ 
straints  his  temper  and  complexion  seem  to  have  laid  in  his  way. 

Upon  the  whole  I  would  endeavor  to  establish  this  maxim, 
that  the  practice  of  virtue  is  the  most  proper  method  to  give  a 
man  a  becoming  assurance  in  his  words  and  actions.  Guilt  al¬ 
ways  seeks  to  shelter  itself  in  one  of  the  extremes,  and  is  some¬ 
times  attended  with  both. 


Complete.  From  the  Spectator. 


698 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 

(Christian  Karl  Josias,  Baron  von  Bunsen) 

(1791-1860) 

o  trace  the  firm  path  of  God  through  the  stream  of  the 
ages”  was  the  definite  purpose  of  Bunsen’s  extraordinary 
studies,  which  resulted  in  such  works  as  <(  God  in  History,” 
wThe  Constitution  of  the  Church  of  the  Future,”  and  (<  Outlines  of 
the  Philosophy  of  Universal  History  as  Applied  to  Language  and 
Religion.”  He  was  born  at  Corbach,  Waldeck,  Germany,  August  25th, 
1791.  His  family  was  poor,  and  at  the  University  of  Gottingen  he 
was  obliged  to  support  himself  by  serving  as  private  tutor  to  a 
wealthy  American  student,  a  member  of  the  Astor  family  of  New 
York.  An  essay  on  <(  The  Athenian  Lav/  of  Inheritance”  won  him 
the  Gottingen  prize  for  1812,  and  an  unsolicited  degree  from  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Jena  followed  it.  The  promise  of  his  university  life  was 
well  kept.  He  became  a  profound  scholar, —  one  of  the  most  distin¬ 
guished  men  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  From  1818 
to  1854  he  was  in  the  diplomatic  service  of  Germany  in  Rome,  Switz¬ 
erland,  and  London.  In  1844  the  king  of  Prussia  asked  his  advice  on 
making  the  changes  in  the  constitution  demanded  by  the  advocates 
of  parliamentary  government.  Bunsen  recommended  concessions  such 
as  the  German  people  afterwards  extorted,  but  his  advice  was  not 
taken.  He  was  of  an  intensely  religious  nature,  and  on  his  death, 
November  28th,  i860,  his  widow  used  as  his  epitaph  the  text  from 
Isaiah,  <(  Let  us  walk  in  the  light  of  the  Lord.” 


LUTHER  AT  WORMS 


The  years  1519,  1520,  1521  were  the  time  of  a  fierce  but  tri¬ 
umphant  struggle  with  the  hitherto  irresistible  power  of 
Rome,  soon  openly  supported  by  the  empire.  The  first  two 
of  these  years  passed  in  public  conferences  and  disputations  at 
Leipsic  and  elsewhere,  with  Eck  and  other  Romanist  doctors,  in 
which  Luther  was  seconded  by  the  eloquence  of  the  ardent  and 
acute  Carlstadt,  as  well  as  by  the  learning  and  argumentative 
powers  of  Melanchthon.  People  and  princes  took  more  and  more 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 


699 


part  in  the  dispute,  and  the  controversy  widened  from  day  to 
day.  Luther  openly  declared  that  Huss  was  right  on  a  great 
many  points,  and  had  been  unjustly  condemned.  Wittenberg  be¬ 
came  crowded  with  students  and  inquirers,  who  flocked  there 
from  all  sides.  Luther  not  only  continued  his  lectures,  but  wrote 
during  this  period  his  most  important  expositions  and  commen¬ 
taries  on  the  New  Testament  —  beginning  with  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  (September,  1519),  which  he  used  to  call  his  own  epis¬ 
tle.  During  the  second  year  (1520)  the  first  great  political  crisis 
occurred,  on  occasion  of  the  death  of  Maximilian,  and  ended 
fatally,  in  consequence  of  the  total  want  of  patriotic  and  political 
wisdom  among  the  German  princes.  The  elector  of  Saxony  was 
offered,  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  and  influential  of  his  col¬ 
leagues,  the  archbishop  of  Treves,  to  be  chosen  emperor,  but  had 
not  the  courage  to  accept  a  dignity  which  he  supposed  to  require 
for  its  support  a  more  powerful  house  than  his  own.  Of  all  the 
political  acts  which  may  be  designated,  with  Dante,  ugran  vil 
rifiato ,  this  was  the  greatest  and  most  to  be  regretted,  supposing 
the  elector  to  have  been  wise  and  courageous  enough  to  give  the 
knights  and  cities  their  proper  share  in  the  government,  and 
patriotic  enough  to  make  the  common  good  his  own. 

The  German  writers  have  called  the  elector  Frederic  <(  the 
Wise,”  particularly  also  with  regard  to  this  question.  But  long 
before  Ranke  pointed  out  the  political  elements  then  existing  for 
an  effective  improvement  of  the  miserable  German  constitution, 
Justus  Moser  of  Osnabriick  had  prophetically  uttered  the  real 
truth  — (<  if  the  emperor  at  that  time  had  destroyed  the  feudal 
system,  this  deed  would  have  been,  according  to  the  spirit  in 
which  it  was  done,  the  grandest  or  the  blackest  in  the  history  of 
the  world.”  Moser  means  that  if  the  emperor  had  embraced  the 
Reformed  faith,  and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  lower  no¬ 
bility  and  the  cities,  united  in  one  body  as  the  lower  house  of  a 
German  parliament,  this  act  would  have  saved  Germany.  But 
we  ought  to  go  further  and  say,  to  expect  such  a  revolution 
from  a  Spanish  king  was  simply  absurd.  Frederic  alone  could, 
and  probably  would,  have  been  led  into  that  course,  just  because 
he  had  nothing  to  rely  upon  except  the  German  nation,  then 
more  numerous  and  powerful  than  it  ever  has  been  since.  The 
so-called  capitulations  of  the  empire,  which  were  accepted  by 
Charles,  contained  not  the  slightest  guarantee  against  religious 
encroachments  on  the  side  of  Rcme. 


700 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 


The  emperor  agreed  at  last  to  the  proposal  of  the  elector 
Frederic,  and  convened  a  diet  at  Worms  for  the  sixth  of  January, 
1521,  where  the  two  questions  of  religion  and  of  a  reform  in  the 
constitution  of  the  empire  were  to  be  treated.  Luther,  though  in 
a  suffering  state  of  health,  resolved  immediately  to  appear  when 
summoned.  (<  If  the  emperor  calls,  it  is  God’s  call  —  I  must  go: 
if  I  am  too  weak  to  go  in  good  health,  I  shall  have  myself  car¬ 
ried  thither  sick.  They  will  not  have  my  blood,  after  which 
they  thirst,  unless  it  is  God’s  will.  Two  things  I  cannot  do  — 
shrink  from  the  call  nor  retract  my  opinions.  ®  The  nuncio  and 
his  party,  on  their  side,  moved  heaven  and  earth  to  procure 
Luther’s  condemnation,  and  threatened  the  Germans  with  exter¬ 
mination,  saying,  (<We  shall  excite  the  one  to  fight  against  the 
other,  that  all  may  perish  in  their  own  blood ® —  a  threat  which 
such  politicians  have  carried  out  to  the  best  of  their  power  dur¬ 
ing  two  hundred  years.  The  emperor  permitted  the  nuncio  to 
appear  officially  in  the  diet,  and  to  try  to  convince  the  princes  of 
the  empire  there  assembled.  Alexander  tried  in  vain  to  com¬ 
municate  to  the  assembly  his  theological  hatred,  or  to  obtain  that 
Luther  should  be  condemned  as  one  judged  by  the  pope,  his 
books  burned  and  his  adherents  persecuted.  The  impression  pro¬ 
duced  by  his  powerful  harangue  was  only  transitory;  even  princes 
who  hated  Luther  personally  would  not  allow  his  person  and 
writings  and  the  general  cause  of  reform  to  be  confounded,  and 
all  crushed  together.  The  abuses  and  exactions  of  Rome  were 
too  crying.  A  committee,  appointed  by  the  diet,  presented  a  list 
of  one  hundred  and  one  grievances  of  the  German  nation  against 
Rome.  This  startled  the  emperor,  who,  instead  of  ordering 
Luther’s  books  to  be  burned,  issued  only  a  provisional  order  that 
they  should  be  delivered  to  the  magistrates.  When  Luther  heard 
of  the  measures  preparing  against  him,  he  composed  one  of  his 
most  admirable  treatises,  <(  The  Exposition  of  the  Magnificat,  or 
the  Canticle  of  the  Virgin  Mary. ®  He  soon  learned  what  he  was 
expected  to  retract.  <(  If  that  is  meant,  I  remain  where  I  am ;  if 
the  emperor  will  call  me  to  have  me  put  to  death,  I  shall  go.® 
The  emperor  summoned  him,  indeed,  on  the  sixth  of  March,  1521, 
to  appear  before  him,  and  granted  him  at  last  a  safe-conduct,  on 
which  all  his  friends  insisted.  Luther,  in  spite  of  all  warnings, 
set  out  with  the  imperial  herald  on  the  second  of  April.  Every¬ 
where  on  the  road  he  saw  the  imperial  edict  against  his  book 
posted  up,  but  witnessed  also  the  hearty  sympathies  of  the  na- 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 


701 


tion.  At  Erfurt  the  herald  gave  way  to  the  universal  request, 
and,  against  his  instructions,  consented  to  Luther’s  preaching  a 
sermon  —  none  the  less  remarkable  for  not  containing  a  single 
word  about  himself.  On  the  sixteenth  Luther  entered  the  im¬ 
perial  city  amid  an  immense  concourse  of  people.  On  his  ap¬ 
proach  to  Worms  the  elector’s  chancellor  entreated  him,  in  the 
name  of  his  master,  not  to  enter  a  town  where  his  death  was 
decided.  The  answer  which  Luther  returned  was  simply  this: 
<(  Tell  your  master  that  if  there  were  as  many  devils  at  Worms 
as  tiles  on  its  roofs,  I  would  enter. })  When  surrounded  by  his 
friends  on  the  morning  of  the  seventeenth,  on  which  day  he  was 
to  appear  before  the  august  assembly,  he  said :  <(  Christ  is  to  me 
what  the  head  of  the  gorgon  was  to  Perseus:  I  must  hold  it  up 
against  the  devil’s  attack.”  When  the  hour  approached,  he  fell 
upon  his  knees  and  uttered  in  great  agony  a  prayer  such  as  can 
only  be  pronounced  by  a  man  filled  with  the  spirit  of  him  who 
prayed  at  Gethsemane.  Friends  took  down  his  words;  and  the 
authentic  document  has  been  published  by  the  great  historian  of 
the  Reformation.  He  rose  from  prayer  and  followed  the  herald. 
Before  the  throne  he  was  asked  two  questions,  Whether  he  ac¬ 
knowledged  the  works  before  him  to  have  been  written  by  him¬ 
self,  and  whether  he  would  retract  what  he  had  said  in  them. 
Luther  requested  to  be  told  the  titles  of  the  books,  and  then, 
addressing  the  emperor,  acknowledged  them  as  his;  as  to  the 
second,  he  asked  for  time  to  reflect,  as  he  might  otherwise  con¬ 
found  his  own  opinions  with  the  declarations  of  the  Word  of 
God,  and  either  say  too  much  or  deny  Christ  and  say  too  little, 
incurring  thus  the  penalty  which  Christ  had  denounced  — <(  Who¬ 
soever  shall  deny  me  before  men,  him  will  I  also  deny  before 
my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. ”  The  emperor,  struck  by  this 
very  measured  answer,  which  some  mistook  for  hesitation,  after 
a  short  consultation  granted  a  day’s  delay  for  the  answer,  which 
was  to  be  by  word  of  mouth.  Luther’s  resolution  was  taken: 
he  only  desired  to  convince  his  friends,  as  well  as  his  enemies, 
that  he  did  not  act  with  precipitation  at  so  decisive  a  moment. 
The  next  day  he  employed  in  prayer  and  meditation,  making  a 
solemn  vow  upon  the  volume  of  Scripture  to  remain  faithful  to 
the  Gospel,  should  he  have  to  seal  his  confession  with  his  blood. 
Luther’s  address  to  the  emperor  has  been  preserved,  and  is  a 
masterpiece  of  eloquence  as  well  as  of  courage.  Confining  his 


702 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 


answer  to  the  first  point,  he  said  that  (<  nobody  could  expect  him 
to  retract  indiscriminately  all  he  had  written  in  those  books, 
since  even  his  enemies  admitted  that  they  contained  much  that 
was  good  and  conformable  to  Scripture.  But  I  have  besides, » 
he  continued,  “laid  open  the  almost  incredible  corruptions  of 
popery  and  given  utterance  to  complaints  almost  universal.  By 
retracting  what  I  have  said  on  this  score,  should  I  not  fortify 
rank  tyranny  and  open  a  still  wider  door  to  enormous  impieties  ? 
Nor  can  I  recall  what,  in  my  controversial  writings,  I  have  ex¬ 
pressed  with  too  great  harshness  against  the  supporters  of  pop¬ 
ery,  my  opponents,  lest  I  should  give  them  encouragement  to 
oppress  Christian  people  still  more.  I  can  only  say  with  Christ: 
( If  I  have  spoken  evil,  bear  witness  of  the  evil.*  I  thank  God 
I  see  how  that  the  Gospel  is  in  our  days,  as  it  was  before,  the 
occasion  of  doubt  and  discord.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Word 
of  God  —  (I  am  not  come  to  send  peace,  but  a  swords  May  this 
new  reign  not  begin,  and  still  less  continue,  under  pernicious 
auspices.  The  Pharaohs  of  Egypt,  the  kings  of  Babylon  and  of 
Israel,  never  worked  more  effectually  for  their  own  ruin  than 
when  they  thought  to  strengthen  their  power.  I  speak  thus 
boldly,  not  because  I  think  that  such  great  princes  want  my  ad¬ 
vice,  but  because  I  will  fulfill  my  duty  toward  Germany,  as  she 
has  a  right  to  expect  from  her  children. **  The  emperor,  proba¬ 
bly  in  order  to  confound  the  poor  monk,  who,  having  been  kept 
standing  so  long  in  the  midst  of  such  an  assembly,  and  in  a  suf¬ 
focating  heat,  was  almost  exhausted  in  body,  ordered  him  to 
repeat  the  discourse  in  Latin.  His  friends  told  him  he  might 
excuse  himself,  but  he  rallied  boldly,  and  pronounced  his  speech 
in  Latin  with  the  same  composure  and  energy  as  at  first;  and 
to  the  reiterated  question,  whether  he  would  retract,  Luther  re¬ 
plied:  “I  cannot  submit  my  faith  either  to  the  pope  or  to  coun¬ 
cils,  for  it  is  clear  that  they  have  often  erred  and  contradicted 
themselves.  I  will  retract  nothing,  unless  convicted  by  the  very 
passages  of  the  Word  of  God  which  I  have  quoted. **  And  then, 
looking  up  to  the  august  assembly  before  him,  he  concluded,  say¬ 
ing:  <(  Here  I  take  my  stand;  I  cannot  do  otherwise;  so  help  me 
God.  Amen ! }>  The  courage  of  Luther  made  a  deep  impression 
even  upon  the  emperor,  who  exclaimed:  “  Forsooth,  the  monk 
speaks  with  intrepidity,  and  with  a  confident  spirit.  ®  The  chan¬ 
cellor  of  the  empire  said :  <(  The  emperor  and  the  State  will  see 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 


7  °3 

what  steps  to  take  against  an  obstinate  heretic.®  All  his  friends 
trembled  at  this  undisguised  declaration.  Luther  repeated:  <(  So 
help  me  God!  I  can  retract  nothing. ®  Upon  this  he  was  dis¬ 
missed,  then  recalled,  and  again  asked  whether  he  would  retract 
a  part  of  what  he  had  written.  (<  I  have  no  other  answer  to 
make,®  was  his  reply.  The  Italians  and  Spaniards  were  amazed. 
Luther  was  told  the  diet  would  come  to  a  decision  the  next  day. 
When  returning  to  his  inn  he  quieted  the  anxious  multitude  with 
a  few  words,  who,  seeing  the  Spaniards  and  Italians  of  the  em¬ 
peror’s  household  follow  him  with  imprecations  and  threats, 
exclaimed  loudly,  in  the  apprehension  that  he  was  about  to  be 
conducted  to  prison. 

The  elector  and  other  princes  now  saw  it  was  their  duty  to 
protect  such  a  man,  and  sent  their  ministers  to  assure  him  of  their 
support.  The  next  day  the  emperor  declared,  <(  He  could  not  allow 
that  a  single  monk  should  disturb  the  peace  of  the  Church,  and 
he  was  resolved  to  let  him  depart,  under  condition  of  creating 
no  trouble;  but  he  would  proceed  against  his  adherents  as  against 
heretics  who  are  under  excommunication,  and  interdict  them  by  all 
means  in  his  power;  and  he  demanded  of  the  estates  of  the  em¬ 
pire  to  conduct  themselves  as  faithful  Christians.®  This  address, 
the  suggestion  of  the  Italian  and  Spanish  party,  created  great 
commotion.  The  most  violent  members  of  that  party  demanded 
of  the  emperor  that  Luther  should  be  burned  and  his  ashes 
thrown  into  the  Rhine,  and  it  is  now  proved  that  toward  the  end 
of  his  life  Charles  reproached  himself  bitterly  for  not  having  thus 
sacrificed  his  word  for  the  good  of  the  Church.  But  the  great 
majority  of  the  German  party,  even  Luther’s  personal  enemies, 
rejected  such  a  proposition  with  horror,  as  unworthy  of  the  good 
faith  of  Germans.  Some  said  openly,  they  had  a  child,  misled 
by  foreigners,  for  an  emperor.  The  emperor  decided  at  last  that 
three  days  should  be  given  to  Luther  to  reconsider  what  he  had 
said.  The  theologians  began  to  try  their  skill  upon  him.  (<  Give 
up  the  Bible  as  the  last  appeal;  you  allow  all  heresies  have  come 
from  the  Bible.®  Luther  reproached  them  for  their  unbelief,  and 
added:  (<  The  pope  is  not  judge  in  the  things  that  belong  to  the 
Word  of  God;  every  Christian  man  must  see  and  understand  him¬ 
self  how  he  is  to  live  and  to  die.®  Two  more  days  were  granted, 
without  producing  any  other  result  than  Luther’s  declaration,  (<  I 
am  ready  to  renounce  the  safe-conduct,  to  deliver  my  life  and 


704 


BARON  VON  BUNSEN 


body  into  the  hands  of  the  emperor,  but  the  Word  of  God,  never! 
I  am  also  ready  to  accept  a  council,  but  one  which  shall  judge 
only  after  the  Scripture. )J  <( What  remedy  can  you  then  name  ? )} 
asked  the  venerable  archbishop  of  Treves.  (<  Only  that  indicated 
by  Gamaliel, y>  replied  Luther;  <(if  this  council  or  this  work  be  of 
men,  it  will  come  to  naught;  but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot 
overthrow  it,  lest  haply  ye  be  found  even  to  fight  against  God.}) 


From  an  essay  on  «  Luther.® 


*7C>r 


EDMUND  BURKE 

(1729-1797) 

tfUND  Burke’s  essay  on  the  <(  Sublime  and  Beautiful  *  shows 
everywhere  the  unmistakable  inspiration  of  the  genius  which 
made  him  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  modern  times.  It  is 
sometimes  criticized  as  unscientific  by  those  who  subject  its  theories 
of  the  beautiful  to  severe  analysis,  but  it  is  equally  safe  to  assert  that 
from  the  time  of  Longinus  to  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
every  attempt  made  to  define  <(the  efficient  causes  of  the  Sublime 
and  Beautiful ”  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  a  failure,  being  in  its  es¬ 
sence  a  part  of  the  impossibility  of  limiting  the  Absolute  and  defin¬ 
ing  the  Infinite.  w  When  I  say  I  intend  to  inquire  into  the  efficient 
cause  of  Sublimity  and  Beauty, ”  writes  Burke,  (<I  would  not  be  un¬ 
derstood  to  say  that  I  can  come  to  the  ultimate  cause.  I  do  not 
pretend  that  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  explain  why  certain  affections  of 
the  body  produce  such  a  distinct  emotion  of  mind,  and  no  other; 
or  why  the  body  is  at  all  affected  by  the  mind,  or  the  mind  by  the 
body.  A  little  thought  will  show  this  to  be  impossible.” 

What  Burke  did  undertake  was  to  examine  into  the  relations  be¬ 
tween  emotion  due  to  sensation  and  the  operations  of  the  higher 
intellect.  If  he  does  not  demonstrate  a  single  proposition,  we  need 
not  concern  ourselves  with  his  failure,  nor  need  we  regret  it.  Burke 
at  his  best  is  no  more  logical  than  Shakespeare.  His  essay  on  the 
<(  Sublime  and  Beautiful  ”  is  as  much  a  work  of  genius  as  (<The  Tem¬ 
pest, })  but  <(The  Tempest ”  proves  nothing,  except  that  there  is  such 
a  reality  as  genius  capable  of  (<  taking  hold  on  the  skirts  of  the  in¬ 
finite.  ”  When  the  vibratory  theory  of  light  and  of  force,  operating 
in  co-relation  with  light  and  heat  through  the  whole  universe,  is  so 
well  defined  that  the  relations  between  color  and  music,  tone  and 
light,  the  melody  of  a  poem  and  the  spectrum  of  a  rainbow,  can  be 
clearly  defined,  the  mind  which  insists  on  scientific  definition  will  be 
better  prepared  to  define  Burke’s  failures.  In  the  meantime,  we  have 
the  privilege  of  studying  the  operation  of  his  great  intellect  in  the 
essay  he  intended  to  make  its  master  work, —  an  essay  nowhere  un¬ 
worthy  of  the  genius  which  shows  at  once  its  modesty  and  its  power 
in  the  conclusion  that  (<  the  great  chain  of  causes,  which  links  one  to 
another,  even  to  the  throne  of  God  himself,  can  never  bd  unraveled 
by  any  industry  of  ours.” 

n— 45 


70  6 


EDMUND  BURKE 


Burke  was  born  in  Dublin,  January  12th,  1729.  After  graduating 
from  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  he  studied  law  and  began  the  work  as 
a  writer  which  would  have  made  him  famous  even  if  he  had  not 
found  opportunity  to  develop  his  genius  for  oratory.  From  the  time 
he  made  his  first  speech  in  Parliament  in  1766  until  he  had  achieved 
his  great  triumph  in  the  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  it  became 
more  and  more  apparent  that  the  English-speaking  world  had  in  him 
its  greatest  orator.  That  eminence  is  still  his,  nor  does  it  seem 
likely  that  he  will  ever  be  supplanted.  His  most  noted  writings  be¬ 
side  the  essay  on  the  <(  Sublime  and  Beautiful })  (A  Philosophical  In¬ 
quiry  into  the  Origin  of  Our  Ideas  of  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful, 
1756),  are  his  <(  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France  }>  (1790),  his 
<(  Thoughts  on  the  Causes  of  the  Present  Discontents )}  (1770),  and  his 
(<  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace })  (1796-97).  He  died  at  Beaconsfield, 
England,  July  8th,  1797. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  GOOD  TASTE 


On  a  superficial  view  we  may  seem  to  differ  very  widely  from 
each  other  in  our  reasonings,  and  no  less  in  our  pleasures; 
but  notwithstanding  this  difference,  which  I  think  to  be 
rather  apparent  than  real,  it  is  probable  that  the  standard  both 
of  reason  and  taste  is  the  same  in  all  human  creatures.  For  if 
there  were  not  some  principles  of  judgment  as  well  as  of  senti¬ 
ment  common  to  all  mankind,  no  hold  could  possibly  be  taken 
either  on  their  reason  or  their  passions  sufficient  to  maintain  the 
ordinary  correspondence  of  life.  It  appears  indeed  to  be  gener¬ 
ally  acknowledged  that  with  regard  to  truth  and  falsehood  there 
is  something  fixed.  We  find  people  in  their  disputes  continually 
appealing  to  certain  tests  and  standards,  which  are  allowed  on  all 
sides,  and  are  supposed  to  be  established  in  our  common  nature. 
But  there  is  not  the  same  obvious  concurrence  in  any  uniform 
or  settled  principles  which  relate  to  taste.  It  is  even  commonly 
supposed  that  this  delicate  and  aerial  faculty,  which  seems  too 
volatile  to  endure  even  the  chains  of  a  definition,  cannot  be  prop¬ 
erly  tried  by  any  test,  nor  regulated  by  any  standard.  There  is 
so  continual  a  call  for  the  exercise  of  the  reasoning  faculty,  and 
it  is  so  much  strengthened  by  perpetual  contention,  that  certain 
maxims  of  right  reason  seem  to  be  tacitly  settled  amongst  the 
most  ignorant.  The  learned  have  improved  on  this  rude  science 
and  reduced  those  maxims  into  a  system.  If  taste  has  not  been 


EDMUND  BURKE 


7°7 


so  happily  cultivated,  it  was  not  that  the  subject  was  barren,  but 
that  the  laborers  were  few  or  negligent;  for  to  say  the  truth, 
there  are  not  the  same  interesting  motives  to  impel  us  to  fix  the 
one  which  urge  us  to  ascertain  the  other.  And  after  all,  if  men 
differ  in  their  opinion  concerning  such  matters,  their  difference 
is  not  attended  with  the  same  important  consequences;  else  I 
make  no  doubt  but  that  the  logic  of  taste,  if  I  may  be  allowed 
the  expression,  might  very  possibly  be  as  well  digested,  and  we 
might  come  to  discuss  matters  of  this  nature  with  as  much  cer¬ 
tainty  as  those  which  seem  more  immediately  within  the  province 
of  mere  reason.  And,  indeed,  it  is  very  necessary,  at  the  en¬ 
trance  into  such  an  inquiry  as  our  present,  to  make  this  point  as 
clear  as  possible;  for  if  taste  has  no  fixed  principles,  if  the  imag¬ 
ination  is  not  affected  according  to  some  invariable  and  certain 
laws,  our  labor  is  like  to  be  employed  to  very  little  purpose;  as 
it  must  be  judged  a  useless,  if  not  an  absurd  undertaking,  to 
lay  down  rules  for  caprice,  and  to  set  up  for  a  legislator  of 
whims  and  fancies. 

The  term  taste,  like  all  other  figurative  terms,  is  not  extremely 
accurate;  the  thing  which  we  understand  by  it  is  far  from  a  sim¬ 
ple  and  determinate  idea  in  the  minds  of  most  men,  and  it  is 
therefore  liable  to  uncertainty  and  confusion.  I  have  no  great 
opinion  of  a  definition,  the  celebrated  remedy  for  the  cure  of 
this  disorder.  For  when  we  define,  we  seem  in  danger  of  cir- 
cumscribing  nature  within  the  bounds  of  our  own  notions,  which 
we  often  take  up  by  hazard,  or  embrace  on  trust,  or  form  out  of 
a  limited  and  partial  consideration  of  the  object  before  us,  in¬ 
stead  of  extending  our  ideas  to  take  in  all  that  nature  compre¬ 
hends,  according  to  her  manner  of  combining.  We  are  limited 
in  our  inquiry  by  the  strict  laws  to  which  we  have  submitted  at 
our  setting  out. 

—  Circa  vilein  patulunique  morabimur  orbem , 

Unde  pndor  proferre  pede?n  vetet  ant  operis  lex. 

A  definition  may  be  very  exact,  and  yet  go  but  a  very  little 
way  towards  informing  us  of  the  nature  of  the  thing  defined; 
but  let  the  virtue  of  a  definition  be  what  it  will,  in  the  order  of 
things,  it  seems  rather  to  follow  than  to  precede  our  inquiry,  of 
which  it  ought  to  be  considered  as  the  result.  It  must  be  ac¬ 
knowledged  that  the  methods  of  disquisition  and  teaching  may.  be 
sometimes  different,  and  on  very  good  reason  undoubtedly;  but 


jo8 


EDMUND  BURKE 


for  my  part,  I  am  convinced  that  the  method  of  teaching  which 
approaches  most  nearly  to  the  method  of  investigation  is  incom¬ 
parably  the  best;  since,  not  content  with  serving  up  a  few  barren 
and  lifeless  truths,  it  leads  to  the  stock  on  which  they  grew;  it 
tends  to  set  the  reader  himself  in  the  track  of  invention,  and  to 
direct  him  into  those  paths  in  which  the  author  has  made  his 
own  discoveries,  if  he  should  be  so  happy  as  to  have  made  any 
that  are  valuable. 

But  to  cut  off  all  pretense  for  caviling,  I  mean  by  the  word 
Taste  no  more  than  that  faculty  or  those  faculties  of  the  mind, 
which  are  affected  with,  or  which  form  a  judgment  of,  the  works 
of  imagination  and  the  elegant  arts.  This  is,  I  think,  the  most 
general  idea  of  that  word,  and  what  is  the  least  connected  with 
any  particular  theory.  And  my  point  in  this  inquiry  is,  to  find 
whether  there  are  any  principles,  on  which  the  imagination  is  af¬ 
fected,  so  common  to  all,  so  grounded  and  certain,  as  to  supply 
the  means  of  reasoning  satisfactorily  about  them.  And  such 
principles  of  taste  I  fancy  there  are,  however  paradoxical  it  may 
seem  to  those  who  on  a  superficial  view  imagine  that  there  is  so 
great  a  diversity  of  tastes,  both  in  kind  and  degree,  that  nothing 
can  be  more  determinate. 

All  the  natural  powers  in  man,  which  I  know,  that  are  con¬ 
versant  about  external  objects  are  the  senses,  the  imagination, 
and  the  judgment.  And  first  with  regard  to  the  senses.  We 
do  and  we  must  suppose,  that  as  the  conformation  of  their  or¬ 
gans  are  nearly  or  altogether  the  same  in  all  men,  so  the  man¬ 
ner  of  perceiving  external  objects  is  in  all  men  the  same,  or  with 
little  difference.  We  are  satisfied  that  what  appears  to  be  light 
to  one  eye  appears  light  to  another;  that  what  seems  sweet  to 
one  palate  is  sweet  to  another;  that  what  is  dark  and  bitter  to 
this  man  is  likewise  dark  and  bitter  to  that;  and  we  conclude 
in  the  same  manner  of  great  and  little,  hard  and  soft,  hot  and 
cold,  rough  and  smooth;  and  indeed  of  all  the  natural  qualities 
and  affections  of  bodies.  If  we  suffer  ourselves  to  imagine  that 
their  senses  present  to  different  men  different  images  of  things, 
this  skeptical  proceeding  will  make  every  sort  of  reasoning  on 
every  subject  vain  and  frivolous,  even  that  skeptical  reasoning 
itself  which  had  persuaded  us  to  entertain  a  doubt  concerning 
the  agreement  of  our  perceptions.  But  as  there  will  be  little 
doubt  that  bodies  present  similar  images  to  the  whole  species,  it 
must  necessarily  be  allowed  that  the  pleasures  and  the  pains 


EDMUND  BURKE 


7°9 

which  every  object  excites  in  one  man,  it  must  raise  in  all  man¬ 
kind,  whilst  it  operates,  naturally,  simply,  and  by  its  proper  pow¬ 
ers  only;  for  if  we  deny  this,  we  must  imagine  that  the  same 
cause  operating  in  the  same  manner,  and  on  subjects  of  the  same 
kind,  will  produce  different  effects,  which  would  be  highly  absurd. 
Let  iis  first  consider  this  point  in  the  sense  of  taste,  and  the 
rather  as  the  faculty  in  question  has  taken  its  name  from  that 
sense.  All  men  are  agreed  to  call  vinegar  sour,  honey  sweet,  and 
aloes  bitter;  and  as  they  are  all  agreed  in  finding  these  qualities 
in  those  objects,  they  do  not  in  the  least  differ  concerning  their 
effects  with  regard  to  pleasure  and  pain.  They  all  concur  in 
calling  sweetness  pleasant,  and  sourness  and  bitterness  unpleasant. 
Here  there  is  no  diversity  in  their  sentiments;  and  that  there  is 
not  appears  fully  from  the  consent  of  all  men  in  the  metaphors 
which  are  taken  from  the  sense  of  taste.  A  sour  temper,  bit¬ 
ter  expressions,  bitter  curses,  a  bitter  fate,  are  terms  well  and 
strongly  understood  by  all.  And  we  are  altogether  as  well  un¬ 
derstood  when  we  say  a  sweet  disposition,  a  sweet  person,  a 
sweet  condition,  and  the  like.  It  is  confessed  that  custom  and 
some  other  causes  have  made  many  deviations  from  the  natural 
pleasures  or  pains  which  belong  to  these  several  tastes;  but  then 
the  power  of  distinguishing  between  the  natural  and  the  acquired 
relish  remains  to  the  very  last.  A  man  frequently  comes  to  pre¬ 
fer  the  taste  of  tobacco  to  that  of  sugar,  and  the  flavor  of  vine¬ 
gar  to  that  of  milk;  but  this  makes  no  confusion  in  tastes,  whilst 
he  is  sensible  that  the  tobacco  and  vinegar  are  not  sweet,  and 
whilst  he  knows  that  habit  alone  has  reconciled  his  palate  to 
these  alien  pleasures.  Even  with  such  a  person  we  may  speak, 
and  with  sufficient  precision,  concerning  tastes.  But  should  any 
man  be  found  who  declares  that  to  him  tobacco  has  a  taste  like 
sugar,  and  that  he  cannot  distinguish  between  milk  and  vinegar; 
or  that  tobacco  and  vinegar  are  sweet,  milk  bitter,  and  sugar 
sour;  we  immediately  conclude  that  the  organs  of  this  man  are 
out  of  order  and  that  his  palate  is  utterly  vitiated.  We  are  as 
far  from  conferring  with  such  a  person  upon  tastes  as  from  rea¬ 
soning  concerning  the  relations  of  quantity  with  one  who  should 
deny  that  all  the  parts  together  were  equal  to  the  whole.  We 
do  not  call  a  man  of  this  kind  wrong  in  his  notions,  but  abso¬ 
lutely  mad.  Exceptions  of  this  sort,  in  either  way,  do  not  at  all 
impeach  our  general  rule,  nor  make  us  conclude  that  men  have 
various  principles  concerning  the  relations  of  quantity  or  the 


7io 


EDMUND  BURKE 


taste  of  things.  So  that  when  it  is  said  taste  cannot  be  disputed, 
it  can  only  mean  that  no  one  can  strictly  answer  what  pleasure 
or  pain  some  particular  man  may  find  from  the  taste  of  some 
particular  thing.  This  indeed  cannot  be  disputed;  but  we  may 
dispute,  and  with  sufficient  clearness  too,  concerning  the  things 
which  are  naturally  pleasing  or  disagreeable  to  the  sense.  But 
when  we  talk  of  any  peculiar  or  acquired  relish,  then  we  must 
know  the  habits,  the  prejudices,  or  the  distempers  of  this  par¬ 
ticular  man,  and  we  must  draw  our  conclusion  from  those. 

This  agreement  of  mankind  is  not  confined  to  the  taste  solely. 
The  principle  of  pleasure  derived  from  sight  is  the  same  in  all. 
Light  is  more  pleasing  than  darkness.  Summer,  when  the  earth 
is  clad  in  green,  when  the  heavens  are  serene  and  bright,  is 
more  agreeable  than  winter,  when  everything  makes  a  different 
appearance.  I  never  remember  that  anything  beautiful,  whether 
a  man,  a  beast,  a  bird,  or  a  plant,  was  ever  shown,  though  it 
were  to  a  hundred  people,  that  they  did  not  all  immediately 
agree  that  it  was  beautiful,  though  some  might  have  thought 
that  it  fell  short  of  their  expectation,  or  that  other  things  were 
still  finer.  I  believe  no  man  thinks  a  goose  to  be  more  beautiful 
than  a  swan,  or  imagines  that  what  they  call  a  Friezland  hen 
excels  a  peacock.  It  must  be  observed  too,  that  the  pleasures  of 
the  sight  are  not  nearly  so  complicated  and  confused  and  altered 
by  unnatural  habits  and  associations  as  the  pleasures  of  the  taste 
are;  because  the  pleasures  of  the  sight  more  commonly  acquiesce 
in  themselves,  and  are  not  so  often  altered  by  considerations 
which  are  independent  of  the  sight  itself.  But  things  do  not 
spontaneously  present  themselves  to  the  palate  as  they  do  to  the 
sight;  they  are  generally  applied  to  it,  either  as  food  or  as  medi¬ 
cine;  and  from  the  qualities  which  they  possess  for  nutritive  or 
medicinal  purposes,  they  often  form  the  palate  by  degrees,  and 
by  force  of  these  associations.  Thus  opium  is  pleasing  to  Turks 
on  account  of  the  agreeable  delirium  it  produces.  Tobacco  is 
the  delight  of  Dutchmen,  as  it  diffuses  a  torpor  and  pleasing 
stupefaction.  Fermented  spirits  please  our  common  people,  be¬ 
cause  they  banish  care  and  all  consideration  of  future  or  present 
evils.  All  of  these  would  lie  absolutely  neglected  if  their  prop¬ 
erties  had  originally  gone  no  further  than  the  taste;  but  all 
these,  together  with  tea  and  coffee,  and  some  other  things,  have 
passed  from  the  apothecary’s  shop  to  our  tables,  and  were  taken 
for  health  long  before  they  were  thought  of  for  pleasure.  The 


EDMUND  BURKE 


711 

effect  of  the  drug  has  made  us  use  it  frequently;  and  frequent 
use,  combined  with  the  agreeable  effect,  has  made  the  taste  itself 
at  last  agreeable.  But  this  does  not  in  the  least  perplex  our 
reasoning,  because  we  distinguish  to  the  last  the  acquired  from 
the  natural  relish.  In  describing  the  taste  of  an  unknown  fruit, 
you  would  scarcely  say  that  it  had  a  sweet  and  pleasant  flavor 
like  tobacco,  opium,  or  garlic,  although  you  spoke  to  those  who 
were  in  the  constant  use  of  these  drugs,  and  had  great  pleasure 
in  them.  There  is  in  all  men  a  sufficient  remembrance  of  the 
original  natural  causes  of  pleasure  to  enable  them  to  bring  all 
things  offered  to  their  senses  to  that  standard,  and  to  regulate 
their  feelings  and  opinions  by  it.  Suppose  one  who  had  so  viti¬ 
ated  his  palate  as  to  take  more  pleasure  in  the  taste  of  opium 
than  in  that  of  butter  or  honey,  to  be  presented  with  a  bolus  of 
squills;  there  is  hardly  any  doubt  but  that  he  would  prefer  the 
butter  or  honey  to  this  nauseous  morsel,  or  to  any  other  bitter 
drug  to  which  he  had  not  been  accustomed;  which  proves  that 
his  palate  was  naturally  like  that  of  other  men  in  all  things,  that 
it  is  still  like  the  palate  of  other  men  in  many  things,  and  only 
vitiated  in  some  particular  points.  For  in  judging  of  any  new 
thing,  even  of  a  taste  similar  to  that  which  he  has  been  formed 
by  habit  to  like,  he  finds  his  palate  affected  in  the  natural  man¬ 
ner  and  on  the  common  principles.  Thus  the  pleasure  of  all 
the  senses,  of  the  sight,  and  even  of  the  taste,  that  most  ambigu¬ 
ous  of  the  senses,  is  the  same  in  all,  high  and  low,  learned  and 
unlearned. 

Besides  the  ideas,  with  their  annexed  pains  and  pleasures, 
which  are  presented  by  the  sense,  the  mind  of  man  possesses  a 
sort  of  creative  power  of  its  own ;  either  in  representing  at 
pleasure  the  images  of  things  in  the  order  and  manner  in  which 
they  were  received  by  the  senses,  or  in  combining  those  images 
in  a  new  manner,  and  according  to  a  different  order.  This 
power  is  called  imagination ;  and  to  this  belongs  whatever  is 
called  wit,  fancy,  invention,  and  the  like.  But  it  must  be  ob¬ 
served  that  the  power  of  the  imagination  is  incapable  of  produc¬ 
ing  anything  absolutely  new;  it  can  only  vary  the  disposition  of 
those  ideas  which  it  has  received  from  the  senses.  Now  the  im¬ 
agination  is  the  most  extensive  province  of  pleasure  and  pain,  as 
it  is  the  region  of  our  fears  and  our  hopes,  and  of  all  our  pas¬ 
sions  that  are  connected  with  them;  and  whatever  is  calculated 
to  effect  the  imagination  with  these  commanding  ideas,  by  force 


712 


EDMUND  BURKE 


of  any  original  natural  impression,  must  have  the  same  power 
pretty  equally  over  all  men.  For  since  the  imagination  is  only 
the  representation  of  the  senses,  it  can  only  be  pleased  or  dis¬ 
pleased  with  the  images,  from  the  same  principle  on  which  the 
sense  is  pleased  or  displeased  with  the  realities;  and  consequently 
there  must  be  just  as  close  an  agreement  in  the  imaginations  as 
in  the  senses  of  men.  A  little  attention  will  convince  us  that 
this  must  of  necessity  be  the  case. 

But  in  the  imaginations,  besides  the  pain  or  pleasure  arising 
from  the  properties  of  the  natural  object,  a  pleasure  is  perceived 
from  the  resemblance  which  the  imitation  has  to  the  original; 
the  imagination,  I  conceive,  can  have  no  pleasure  but  what 
results  from  one  or  other  of  these  causes.  And  these  causes 
operate  pretty  uniformly  upon  all  men,  because  they  operate  by 
principles  in  nature,  and  which  are  not  derived  from  any  par¬ 
ticular  habits  or  advantages.  Mr.  Locke  very  justly  and  finely 
observes  of  wit  that  it  is  chiefly  conversant  in  tracing  resem¬ 
blances;  he  remarks  at  the  same  time  that  the  business  of  judg¬ 
ment  is  rather  in  finding  differences.  It  may  perhaps  appear,  on 
this  supposition,  that  there  is  no  material  distinction  between  the 
wit  and  the  judgment,  as  they  both  seem  to  result  from  different 
operations  of  the  same  faculty  of  comparing.  But  in  reality, 
whether  they  are  or  are  not  dependent  on  the  same  power  of 
the  mind,  they  differ  so  very  materially  in  many  respects,  that  a 
perfect  union  of  wit  and  judgment  is  one  of  the  rarest  things  in 
the  world.  When  two  distinct  objects  are  unlike  to  each  other, 
it  is  only  what  we  expect;  things  are  in  their  common  way,  and 
therefore  they  make  no  impression  on  the  imagination;  but  when 
two  distinct  objects  have  a  resemblance,  we  are  struck,  we  attend 
to  them,  and  we  are  pleased.  The  mind  of  man  has  naturally  a 
far  greater  alacrity  and  satisfaction  in  tracing  resemblances  than 
in  searching  for  differences;  because  by  making  resemblances  we 
produce  new  images;  we  unite,  we  create,  we  enlarge  our  stock: 
but  in  making  distinctions  we  offer  no  food  at  all  to  the  imagi¬ 
nation;  the  task  itself  is  more  severe  and  irksome,  and  what 
pleasure  we  derive  from  it  is  something  of  a  negative  and  in¬ 
direct  nature.  A  piece  of  news  is  told  me  in  the  morning;  this, 
merely  as  a  piece  of  news,  as  a  fact  added  to  my  stock,  gives 
me  some  pleasure.  In  the  evening  I  find  there  was  nothing  in  it. 
What  do  I  gain  by  this  but  the  dissatisfaction  to  find  that  I  had 
been  imposed  upon  ?  Hence  it  is  that  men  are  much  more  nat- 


EDMUND  BURKE 


713 


urally  inclined  to  belief  than  to  incredulity.  And  it  is  upon  this 
principle  that  the  most  ignorant  and  barbarous  nations  have  fre¬ 
quently  excelled  in  similitudes,  comparisons,  metaphors,  and  alle¬ 
gories,  who  have  been  weak  and  backward  in  distinguishing  and 
sorting  their  ideas.  And  it  is  for  a  reason  of  this  kind  that 
Homer  and  the  Oriental  writers,  though  very  fond  of  similitudes, 
and  though  they  often  strike  out  such  as  are  truly  admirable,  sel¬ 
dom  take  care  to  have  them  exact;  that  is,  they  are  taken  with 
the  general  resemblance,  they  paint  it  strongly,  and  they  take  no 
notice  of  the  difference  which  may  be  found  between  the  things 
compared. 

Now,  as  the  pleasure  of  resemblance  is  that  which  principally 
flatters  the  imagination,  all  men  are  nearly  equal  in  this  point, 
as  far  as  their  knowledge  of  the  things  represented  or  compared 
extends.  The  principle  of  this  knowledge  is  very  much  acci¬ 
dental,  as  it  depends  upon  experience  and  observation,  and  not 
on  the  strength  or  weakness  of  any  natural  faculty;  and  it  is 
from  this  difference  in  knowledge  that  what  we  commonly,  though 
with  no  great  exactness,  call  a  difference  in  taste  proceeds.  A 
man  to  whom  sculpture  is  new  sees  a  barber’s  block,  or  some 
ordinary  piece  of  statuary;  he  is  immediately  struck  and  pleased, 
because  he  sees  something  like  a  human  figure;  and,  entirely 
taken  up  with  this  likeness,  he  does  not  at  all  attend  to  its  de¬ 
fects.  No  person,  I  believe,  at  the  first  time  of  seeing  a  piece 
of  imitation  ever  did.  Some  time  after,  we  suppose  that  this 
novice  lights  upon  a  more  artificial  work  of  the  same  nature;  he 
now  begins  to  look  with  contempt  oa  what  he  admired  at  first; 
not  that  he  admired  it  even  then  for  its  unlikeness  to  a  man, 
but  for  that  general  though  inaccurate  resemblance  which  it  bore 
to  the  human  figure.  What  he  admired  at  different  times  in 
these  so  different  figures  is  strictly  the  same;  and  though  his 
knowledge  is  improved,  his  taste  is  not  altered.  Hitherto  his 
mistake  was  from  a  want  of  knowledge  in  art,  and  this  arose 
from  his  inexperience;  but  he  may  be  still  deficient  from  a  want 
of  knowledge  in  nature.  For  it  is  possible  that  the  man  in  ques¬ 
tion  may  stop  here,  and  that  the  masterpiece  of  a  great  hand 
may  please  him  no  more  than  the  middling  performance  of  a  vul¬ 
gar  artist;  and  this  not  for  want  of  better  or  higher  relish,  but 
because  all  men  do  not  observe  with  sufficient  accuracy  on  the 
human  figure  to  enable  them  to  judge  properly  of  an  imitation 
of  it.  And  that  the  critical  taste  does  not  depend  upon  a  supe- 


7*4 


EDMUND  BURKE 


rior  principle  in  men,  but  upon  superior  knowledge,  may  appear 
from  several  instances.  The  story  of  the  ancient  painter  and  the 
shoemaker  is  very  well  known.  The  shoemaker  set  the  painter 
right  with  regard  to  some  mistakes  he  had  made  in  the  shoe  of 
one  of  his  figures,  and  which  the  painter,  who  had  not  made  such 
accurate  observations  on  shoes,  and  was  content  with  a  general 
resemblance,  had  never  observed.  But  this  was  no  impeachment 
to  the  taste  of  the  painter;  it  only  showed  some  want  of  knowl¬ 
edge  in  the  art  of  making  shoes.  Let  us  imagine  that  an  anato¬ 
mist  had  come  into  the  painter’s  working-room.  His  piece  is  in 
general  well  done,  the  figure  in  question  in  a  good  attitude,  and 
the  parts  well  adjusted  to  their  various  movements;  yet  the  anat¬ 
omist,  critical  in  his  art,  may  observe  the  swell  of  some  muscle 
not  quite  just  in  the  peculiar  action  of  the  figure.  Here  the 
anatomist  observes  what  the  painter  had  not  observed;  and  he 
passes  by  what  the  shoemaker  had  remarked.  But  a  want  of 
the  last  critical  knowledge  in  anatomy  no  more  reflected  on  the 
natural  good  taste  of  the  painter,  or  of  any  common  observer  of 
his  piece,  than  the  want  of  an  exact  knowledge  in  the  formation 
of  a  shoe.  A  fine  piece  of  a  decollated  head  of  Saint  John  the 
Baptist  was  shown  to  a  Turkish  emperor;  he  praised  many  things, 
but  he  observed  one  defect:  he  observed  that  the  skin  did  not 
shrink  from  the  wounded  part  of  the  neck.  The  sultan  on  this 
occasion,  though  his  observation  was  very  just,  discovered  no  more 
natural  taste  than  the  painter  who  executed  this  piece,  or  than  a 
thousand  European  connoisseurs,  who  probably  never  would  have 
made  the  same  observation.  His  Turkish  majesty  had  indeed 
been  well  acquainted  with  that  terrible  spectacle,  which  the  others 
could  only  have  represented  in  their  imagination.  On  the  subject 
of  their  dislike  there  is  a  difference  between  all  these  people, 
arising  from  the  different  kinds  and  degrees  of  their  knowledge; 
but  there  is  something  in  common  to  the  painter,  the  shoemaker, 
the  anatomist,  and  the  Turkish  emperor:  the  pleasure  arising 
from  a  natural  object,  so  far  as  each  perceives  it  justly  imitated; 
the  satisfaction  in  seeing  an  agreeable  figure;  the  sympathy  pro¬ 
ceeding  from  a  striking  and  affecting  incident.  So  far  as  taste 
is  natural,  it  is  nearly  common  to  all. 

In  poetry,  and  other  pieces  of  imagination,  the  same  par¬ 
ity  may  be  observed.  It  is  true  that  one  man  is  charmed  with 
<(  Don  Bellianis”  and  reads  Virgil  coldly,  whilst  another  is  trans¬ 
ported  with  the  <(EEneid  )}  and  leaves  <(  Don  Bellianis )y  to  children. 


EDMUND  BURKE 


715 


These  two  men  seem  to  have  a  taste  very  different  from  each 
other,  but  in  fact  they  differ  very  little.  In  both  these  pieces, 
which  inspire  such  opposite  sentiments,  a  tale  exciting  admira¬ 
tion  is  told;  both  are  full  of  action,  both  are  passionate;  in  both 
are  voyages,  battles,  and  triumphs,  and  continual  changes  of  for¬ 
tune.  The  admirer  of  <(  Don  Bellianis  )J  perhaps  does  not  under¬ 
stand  the  refined  language  of  the  ('kEneid, w  who,  if  it  were 
degraded  into  the  style  of  the  <(  Pilgrim’s  Progress,  ®  might  feel 
it  in  all  its  energy,  on  the  same  principle  which  makes  him  ad¬ 
mire  <(  Don  Bellianis. w 

In  his  favorite  author  he  is  not  shocked  with  the  continual 
breaches  of  probability,  the  confusion  of  times,  the  offenses 
against  manners,  the  trampling  upon  geography;  for  he  knows 
nothing  of  geography  and  chronology,  and  he  has  never  ex¬ 
amined  the  grounds  of  probability.  He  perhaps  reads  of  a 
shipwreck  on  the  coast  of  Bohemia;  wholly  taken  up  with  so 
interesting  an  event,  and  only  solicitous  for  the  fate  of  his  hero, 
he  is  not  in  the  least  troubled  at  this  extravagant  blunder.  For 
why  should  he  be  shocked  at  a  shipwreck  on  the  coast  of  Bo¬ 
hemia,  who  does  not  know  but  that  Bohemia  may  be  an  island 
in  the  Atlantic  Ocean  ?  and,  after  all,  what  reflection  is  this  on 
the  natural  good  taste  of  the  person  here  supposed  ? 

So  far,  then,  as  taste  belongs  to  the  imagination,  its  principle 
is  the  same  in  all  men;  there  is  no  difference  in  the  manner  of 
their  being  affected,  nor  in  the  causes  of  the  affection;  but  in  the 
degree  there  is  a  difference,  which  arises  from  two  causes  princi¬ 
pally;  either  from  a  greater  degree  of  natural  sensibility,  or  from 
a  closer  and  longer  attention  to  the  object.  To  illustrate  this  by 
the  procedure  of  the  senses,  in  which  the  same  difference  is 
found,  let  us  suppose  a  very  smooth  marble  table  to  be  set  before 
two  men;  they  both  perceive  it  to  be  smooth,  and  they  are  both 
pleased  with  it  because  of  this  quality.  So  far  they  agree.  But 
suppose  another,  and  after  that  another  table,  the  latter  still 
smoother  than  the  former,  to  be  set  before  them.  It  is  now  very 
probable  that  these  men,  who  are  so  agreed  upon  what  is  smooth, 
and  in  the  pleasure  from  thence,  will  disagree  when  they  come 
to  settle  which  table  has  the  advantage  in  point  of  polish.  Here 
is,  indeed,  the  great  difference  between  tastes,  when  men  come  to 
compare  the  excess  or  diminution  of  things  which  are  judged  by 
degree  and  not  by  measure.  Nor  is  it  easy,  when  such  a  differ¬ 
ence  arises,  to  settle  the  point,  if  the  excess  or  diminution  be  not 


EDMUND  BURKE 


716 

glaring.  If  we  differ  in  opinion  about  two  quantities,  we  can 
have  recourse  to  a  common  measure,  which  may  decide  the 
question  with  the  utmost  exactness;  and  this,  I  take  it,  is  what 
gives  mathematical  knowledge  a  greater  certainty  than  any  other. 
But  in  things  whose  excess  is  not  judged  by  greater  or  smaller, 
as  smoothness  and  roughness,  hardness  and  softness,  darkness 
and  light,  the  shades  of  colors, —  all  these  are  very  easily  distin¬ 
guished  when  the  difference  is  any  way  considerable,  but  not 
when  it  is  minute,  for  want  of  some  common  measures,  which 
perhaps  may  never  come  to  be  discovered.  In  these  nice  cases, 
supposing  the  acuteness  of  the  sense  equal,  the  greater  attention 
and  habit  in  such  things  will  have  the  advantage.  In  the  ques¬ 
tion  about  the  tables,  the  marble  polisher  will  unquestionably 
determine  the  most  accurately.  But  notwithstanding  this  want 
of  a  common  measure  for  settling  many  disputes  relative  to  the 
senses,  and  their  representative,  the  imagination,  we  find  that  the 
principles  are  the  same  in  all,  and  that  there  is  no  disagreement 
until  we  come  to  examine  into  the  pre-eminence  or  difference  of 
things,  which  brings  us  within  the  province  of  the  judgment. 

So  long  as  we  are  conversant  with  the  sensible  qualities  of 
things,  hardly  any  more  than  the  imagination  seems  concerned; 
little  more,  also,  than  the  imagination  seems  concerned  when  the 
passions  are  represented,  because  by  the  force  of  natural  sym¬ 
pathy  they  are  felt  in  all  men  without  any  recourse  to  reason¬ 
ing,  and  their  justness  recognized  in  every  breast.  Love,  grief, 
fear,  anger,  joy,  all  these  passions  have  in  their  turns  affected 
every  mind;  and  they  do  not  affect  it  in  an  arbitrary  or  casual 
manner,  but  upon  certain,  natural,  and  uniform  principles.  But 
as  many  of  the  works  of  imagination  are  not  confined  to  the 
representation  of  sensible  objects,  nor  to  efforts  upon  the  pas¬ 
sions,  but  extend  themselves  to  the  manners,  the  characters,  the 
actions  and  designs  of  men,  their  relations,  their  virtues  and 
vices,  they  come  within  the  province  of  the  judgment,  which  is 
improved  by  attention  and  by  the  habit  of  reasoning.  All  these 
make  a  very  considerable  part  of  what  are  considered  as  the  ob¬ 
jects  of  taste,  and  Horace  sends  us  to  the  schools  of  philosophy 
and  the  world  for  our  instruction  in  them.  Whatever  certainty 
is  to  be  acquired  in  morality  and  the  science  of  life,  just  the 
same  degree  of  certainty  have  we  in  what  relates  to  them  in  the 
works  of  imitation.  Indeed  it  is  for  the  most  part  in  our  skill 
in  manners,  and  in  the  observances  of  time  and  place,  and  of 


EDMUND  BURKE 


717 


decency  in  general,  which  is  only  to  be  learned  in  those  schools 
to  which  Horace  recommends  us,  that  what  is  called  taste,  by 
way  of  distinction,  consists;  and  which  is  in  reality  no  other  than 
a  more  refined  judgment.  On  the  whole,  it  appears  to  me  that 
what  is  called  taste,  in  its  most  general  acceptation,  is  not  a 
simple  idea,  but  is  partly  made  up  of  a  perception  of  the  primary 
pleasures  of  sense,  of  the  secondary  pleasures  of  the  imagination, 
and  of  the  conclusions  of  the  reasoning  faculty,  concerning  the 
various  relations  of  these,  and  concerning  the  human  passions, 
manners,  and  actions.  All  this  is  requisite  to  form  taste,  and  the 
groundwork  of  all  these  is  the  same  in  the  human  mind;  for  a? 
the  senses  are  the  great  originals  of  all  our  ideas,  and  conse- 
quently  of  all  our  pleasures,  if  they  are  not  uncertain  and  arbi¬ 
trary,  the  whole  groundwork  of  taste  is  common  to  all,  and 
therefore  there  is  a  sufficient  foundation  for  a  conclusive  reason¬ 
ing  on  these  matters. 

Whilst  we  consider  taste  merely  according  to  its  nature  and 
species,  we  shall  find  its  principles  entirely  uniform;  but  the  de¬ 
gree  in  which  these  principles  prevail,  in  the  several  individuals 
of  mankind,  is  altogether  as  different  as  the  principles  themselves 
are  similar.  For  sensibility  and  judgment,  which  are  the  quali¬ 
ties  that  compose  what  we  commonly  call  a  taste,  vary  exceed¬ 
ingly  in  various  people.  From  a  defect  in  the  former  of  these 
qualities  arises  a  want  of  taste ;  a  weakness  in  the  latter  consti¬ 
tutes  a  wrong  or  a  bad  one.  There  are  some  men  formed  with 
feelings  so  blunt,  with  tempers  so  cold  and  phlegmatic,  that  they 
can  hardly  be  said  to  be  awake  during  the  whole  course  of  their 
lives.  Upon  such  persons  the  most  striking  objects  make  but  a 
faint  and  obscure  impression.  There  are  others  so  continually 
in  the  agitation  of  gross  and  merely  sensual  pleasures,  or  so  oc¬ 
cupied  in  the  low  drudgery  of  avarice,  or  so  heated  in  the  chase 
of  honors  and  distinction,  that  their  minds,  which  had  been  used 
continually  to  the  storms  of  these  violent  and  tempestuous  pas¬ 
sions,  can  hardly  be  put  in  motion  by  the  delicate  and  refined 
play  of  the  imagination.  These  men,  though  from  a  different 
cause,  become  as  stupid  and  insensible  as  the  former;  but  when¬ 
ever  either  of  these  happen  to  be  struck  with  any  natural  ele¬ 
gance  or  greatness,  or  with  these  qualities  in  any  work  of  art, 
they  are  moved  upon  the  same  principle. 

The  cause  of  a  wrong  taste  is  a  defect  of  judgment.  And 
this  may  arise  from  a  natural  weakness  of  understanding  (in 


7iS 


EDMUND  BURKE 


whatever  the  strength  of  that  faculty  may  consist),  or,  which  is 
much  more  commonly  the  case,  it  may  arise  from  a  want  of 
proper  and  well-directed  exercise,  which  alone  can  make  it  strong 
and  ready.  Besides  that  ignorance,  inattention,  prejudice,  rash¬ 
ness,  levity,  obstinacy, —  in  short,  all  those  passions,  and  all  those 
vices,  which  pervert  the  judgment  in  other  matters, —  prejudice  is 
no  less  in  this  its  more  refined  and  elegant  province.  These 
causes  produce  different  opinions  upon  everything  which  is  an 
object  of  the  understanding,  without  inducing  us  to  suppose  that 
there  are  no  settled  principles  of  reason.  And  indeed  on  the 
whole  one  may  observe  that  there  is  rather  less  difference  upon 
matters  of  taste  among  mankind  than  upon  most  of  those  which 
depend  upon  naked  reason;  and  that  men  are  far  better  agreed 
on  the  excellence  of  a  description  in  Virgil  than  on  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  a  theory  of  Aristotle. 

A  rectitude  of  judgment  in  the  arts,  which  may  be  called  a 
good  taste,  does  in  a  great  measure  depend  upon  sensibility;  be¬ 
cause  if  the  mind  has  no  bent  to  the  pleasures  of  the  imagina¬ 
tion,  it  will  never  apply  itself  sufficiently  to  works  of  that  species 
to  acquire  a  competent  knowledge  in  them.  But  though  a  degree 
of  sensibility  is  requisite  to  form  a  good  judgment,  yet  a  good 
judgment  does  not  necessarily  arise  from  a  quick  sensibility  of 
pleasure;  it  frequently  happens  that  a  very  poor  judge,  merely  by 
force  of  a  greater  complexional  sensibility,  is  more  affected  by  a 
very  poor  piece  than  the  best  judge  by  the  most  perfect;  for  as 
everything  new,  extraordinary,  grand,  or  passionate,  is  well  calcu¬ 
lated  to  affect  such  a  person,  and  that  the  faults  do  not  affect 
him,  his  pleasure  is  more  pure  and  unmixed;  and  as  it  is  merely 
a  pleasure  of  the  imagination,  it  is  much  higher  than  any  which 
is  derived  from  a  rectitude  of  the  judgment;  the  judgment  is  for 
the  greater  part  employed  in  throwing  stumbling-blocks  in  the 
way  of  the  imagination,  in  dissipating  the  scenes  of  its  enchant¬ 
ment,  and  in  tying  us  down  to  the  disagreeable  yoke  of  our  rea¬ 
son  ;  for  almost  the  only  pleasure  that  men  have  in  judging  better 
than  others  consists  in  a  sort  of  conscious  pride  and  superiority, 
which  arises  from  thinking  rightly;  but,  then,  this  is  an  indirect 
pleasure,  a  pleasure  which  does  not  immediately  result  from  the 
object  which  is  under  contemplation.  In  the  morning  of  our 
days,  when  the  senses  are  unworn  and  tender,  when  the  whole 
man  is  awake  in  every  part,  and  the  gloss  of  novelty  fresh  upon 
ali  the  objects  that  surround  us,  how  lively  at  that  time  are  our 


EDMUND  BURKE 


719 

sensations,  but  how  false  and  inaccurate  the  judgments  we  form 
of  things!  I  despair  of  ever  receiving  the  same  degree  of  pleas¬ 
ure  from  the  most  excellent  performances  of  genius,  which  I  felt 
at  that  age  from  pieces  which  my  present  judgment  regards  as 
trifling  and  contemptible.  Every  trivial  cause  of  pleasure  is  apt 
to  affect  the  man  of  too  sanguine  a  complexion:  his  appetite  is 
too  keen  to  suffer  his  taste  to  be  delicate;  and  he  is  in  all  re¬ 
spects  what  Ovid  says  of  himself  in  love: 

Molle  meum  levibus  cor  est  violabile  ielis , 

Et  semper  causa  est ,  cur  ego  semper  amem. 

One  of  this  character  can  never  be  a  refined  judge;  never 
what  the  comic  poet  calls  elegans  for  mar  uni  spectator.  The  excel¬ 
lence  and  force  of  a  composition  must  always  be  imperfectly 
estimated  from  its  effect  on  the  minds  of  any,  except  we  know 
the  temper  and  character  of  those  minds.  The  most  powerful 
effects  of  poetry  and  music  have  been  displayed,  and  perhaps  are 
still  displayed,  where  these  arts  are  but  in  a  very  low  and  im¬ 
perfect  state.  The  rude  hearer  is  affected  by  the  principles  which 
operate  in  these  arts  even  in  their  rudest  condition;  and  he  is 
not  skillful  enough  to  perceive  the  defects.  But  as  arts  advance 
towards  their  perfection,  the  science  of  criticism  advances  with 
equal  pace,  and  the  pleasures  of  judges  are  frequently  interrupted 
by  the  faults  which  are  discovered  in  the  most  finished  composi¬ 
tions. 

Before  I  leave  this  subject,  I  cannot  help  taking  notice  of  an 
opinion  which  many  persons  entertain,  as  if  the  taste  were  a  sep¬ 
arate  faculty  of  the  mind,  and  distinct  from  the  judgment  and 
imagination;  a  species  of  instinct,  by  which  we  are  struck  natur¬ 
ally,  and  at  the  first  glance,  without  any  previous  reasoning,  with 
the  excellencies  or  the  defects  of  a  composition.  So  far  as  the 
imagination  and  the  passions  are  concerned,  I  believe  it  true 
that  the  reason  is  little  consulted;  but  where  disposition,  where 
decorum,  where  congruity  are  concerned,  in  short,  wherever  the 
best  taste  differs  from  the  worst,  I  am  convinced  that  the  under¬ 
standing  operates  and  nothing  else;  and  its  operation  is  in  reality 
far  from  being  always  sudden,  or,  when  it  is  sudden,  it  is  often  far 
from  being  right.  Men  of  the  best  taste  by  consideration  come 
frequently  to  change  these  early  and  precipitate  judgments,  which 
the  mind,  from  its  aversion  to  neutrality  and  doubt,  loves  to 
form  on  the  spot.  It  is  known  that  the  taste  (whatever  it  is)"  is 


720 


EDMUND  BURKE 


improved  exactly  as  we  improve  our  judgment,  by  extending 
our  knowledge,  by  a  steady  attention  to  our  object,  and  by  fre¬ 
quent  exercise.  They  who  have  not  taken  these  methods,  if 
their  taste  decides  quickly,  it  is  always  uncertainly;  and  their 
quickness  is  owing  to  their  presumption  and  rashness,  and  not 
to  any  hidden  irradiation  that  in  a  moment  dispels  all  darkness 
from  their  minds.  But  they  who  have  cultivated  that  species  of 
knowledge  which  makes  the  object  of  taste,  by  degrees  and  ha¬ 
bitually  attain  not  only  a  soundness,  but  a  readiness  of  judg¬ 
ment,  as  men  do  by  the  same  methods  on  all  other  occasions. 
At  first  they  are  obliged  to  spell,  but  at  last  they  read  with  ease 
and  with  celerity,  but  this  celerity  of  its  operation  is  no  proof 
that  the  taste  is  a  distinct  faculty.  Nobody,  I  believe,  has  at¬ 
tended  the  cause  of  a  discussion,  which  turned  upon  matters 
within  the  sphere  of  mere  naked  reason,  but  must  have  observed 
the  extreme  readiness  with  which  the  whole  process  of  the  argu¬ 
ment  is  carried  on,  the  grounds  discovered,  the  objections  raised 
and  answered,  and  the  conclusions  drawn  from  premises,  with  a 
quickness  altogether  as  great  as  the  taste  can  be  supposed  to 
work  with;  and  yet  where  nothing  but  plain  reason  either  is  or 
can  be  suspected  to  operate.  To  multiply  principles  for  every 
different  appearance  is  useless,  and  unphilosophical  too  in  a  high 
degree. 

This  matter  might  be  pursued  much  further,  but  it  is  not 
the  extent  of  the  subject  which  must  prescribe  our  bounds;  for 
what  subject  does  not  branch  out  to  infinity  ?  It  is  the  nature 
of  our  particular  scheme,  and  the  single  point  of  view  in  which 
we  consider  it,  which  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  our  researches. 

Complete.  The  essay  prefixed  by  Burke  to  <(  The  Philosophical  Inquiry 
into  the  Origin  of  Our  Ideas  of  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful. » 


THE  EFFICIENT  CAUSE  OF  THE  SUBLIME  AND  BEAUTIFUL 

Section  I 

When  I  say  I  intend  to  inquire  into  the  efficient  cause  ot 
Sublimity  and  Beauty,  I  would  not  be  understood  to  say 
that  I  can  come  to  the  ultimate  cause.  I  do  not  pretend 
that  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  explain  why  certain  affections  of  the 
body  produce  such  a  distinct  emotion  of  mind,  and  no  other;  or 


EDMUND  BURKE 


721 


why  the  body  is  at  all  affected  by  the  mind,  or  the  mind  by  the 
body.  A  little  thought  will  show  this  to  be  impossible.  But  I 
conceive,  if  we  can  discover  what  affections  of  the  mind  produce 
certain  emotions  of  the  body,  and  what  distinct  feelings  and 
qualities  of  body  shall  produce  certain  determinate  passions  in 
the  mind,  and  no  others,  I  fancy  a  great  deal  will  be  done: 
something  not  unuseful  towards  a  distinct  knowledge  of  our 
passions,  so  far  at  least  as  we  have  them  at  present  under  our 
consideration.  This  is  all,  I  believe,  we  can  do.  If  we  could 
advance  a  step  further  difficulties  would  still  remain,  as  we  should 
be  still  equally  distant  from  the  first  cause.  When  Newton  first 
discovered  the  property  of  attraction  and  settled  its  laws,  he  found 
it  served  very  well  to  explain  several  of  the  most  remarkable 
phenomena  in  nature;  but  yet,  with  reference  to  the  general  sys¬ 
tem  of  things,  he  could  consider  attraction  but  as  an  effect,  whose 
cause  at  that  time  he  did  not  attempt  to  trace.  But  when  he 
afterwards  began  to  account  for  it  by  a  subtle  elastic  ether,  this 
great  man  (if  in  so  great  a  man  it  be  not  impious  to  discover 
anything  like  a  blemish)  seemed  to  have  quitted  his  usual  cau¬ 
tious  manner  of  philosophizing;  since,  perhaps,  allowing  all  that 
has  been  advanced  on  this  subject  to  be  sufficiently  proved,  I 
think  it  leaves  us  with  as  many  difficulties  as  it  found  us.  The 
great  chain  of  causes,  which  links  one  to  another,  even  to  the 
throne  of  God  himself,  can  never  be  unraveled  by  any  industry 
of  ours.  When  we  go  but  one  step  beyond  the  immediate  sen¬ 
sible  qualities  of  things,  we  go  out  of  our  depth.  All  we  do 

after  is  but  a  faint  struggle  that  shows  we  are  in  an  element 

which  does  not  belong  to  us.  So  that  when  I  speak  of  cause, 
and  efficient  cause,  I  only  mean  certain  affections  of  the  mind 
that  cause  certain  changes  in  the  body;  or  certain  powers  and 
properties  in  bodies  that  work  a  change  in  the  mind.  As  if  I 
were  to  explain  the  motion  of  a  body  falling  to  the  ground,  I 
would  say  it  was  caused  by  gravity;  and  I  would  endeavor  to 

show  after  what  manner  this  power  operated  without  attempting 

to  show  why  it  operated  in  this  manner:  or  if  I  were  to  explain 
the  effects  of  bodies  striking  one  another  by  the  common  laws  of 
percussion,  I  should  not  endeavor  to  explain  how  motion  itself  is 
communicated. 

11—46 


722 


EDMUND  BURKE 


Section  II 
association 

It  is  no  small  bar  in  the  way  of  our  inquiry  into  the  cause 
of  our  passions  that  the  occasions  of  many  of  them  are  given, 
and  that  their  governing  motions  are  communicated  at  a  time 
when  we  have  not  capacity  to  reflect  on  them;  at  a  time  of  which 
all  sort  of  memory  is  worn  out  of  our  minds.  For  besides  such 
things  as  affect  us  in  various  manners,  according  to  their  natural 
powers,  there  are  associations  made  at  that  early  season  which 
we  find  it  very  hard  afterwards  to  distinguish  from  natural  effects. 
Not  to  mention  the  unaccountable  antipathies  which  we  find  in 
many  persons,  we  all  find  it  impossible  to  remember  when  a 
steep  became  more  terrible  than  a  plain;  or  fire  or  water  more 
terrible  than  a  clod  of  earth;  though  all  these  are  very  probably 
either  conclusions  from  experience,  or  arising  from  the  premoni¬ 
tions  of  others;  and  some  of  them  impressed,  in  all  likelihood, 
pretty  late.  But  as  it  must  be  allowed  that  many  things  affect 
us  after  a  certain  manner,  not  by  any  natural  powers  they  have 
for  that  purpose,  but  by  association,  so  it  would  be  absurd,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  say  that  all  things  affect  us  by  association 
only,  since  some  things  must  have  been  originally  and  naturally 
agreeable  or  disagreeable,  from  which  the  others  derive  their 
associated  powers;  and  it  would  be,  I  fancy,  to  little  purpose  to 
look  for  the  cause  of  our  passions  in  association,  until  we  fail  of 
it  in  the  natural  properties  of  things. 


Section  III 

CAUSE  OF  PAIN  AND  FEAR 

I  have  before  observed  that  whatever  is  qualified  to  cause 
terror  is  a  foundation  capable  of  the  sublime ;  to  whieh  I  add 
that  not  only  these,  but  many  things  from  which  we  cannot 
probably  apprehend  any  danger,  have  a  similar  effect,  because 
they  operate  in  a  similar  manner.  I  observed  too,  that  whatever 
produces  pleasure,  positive  and  original  pleasure,  is  fit  to  have 
beauty  ingrafted  on  it.  Therefore,  to  clear  up  the  nature  of 
these  qualities,  it  may  be  necessary  to  explain  the  nature  of  pain 
-nd  pleasure  on  which  they  depend.  A  man  who  suffers  under 


EDMUND  BURKE 


723 


violent  bodily  pain  (I  suppose  the  most  violent,  because  the  effect 
may  be  the  more  obvious),  I  say  a  man  in  great  pain  has  his 
teeth  set,  his  eyebrows  are  violently  contracted,  his  forehead  is 
wrinkled,  his  eyes  are  dragged  inwards  and  rolled  with  great 
vehemence,  his  hair  stands  on  end,  the  voice  is  forced  out  in 
short  shrieks  and  groans,  and  the  whole  fabric  totters.  Fear,  or 
terror,  which  is  an  apprehension  of  pain  or  death,  exhibits  exactly 
the  same  effects,  approaching  in  violence  to  those  just  mentioned 
in  proportion  to  the  nearness  of  the  cause  and  the  weakness  of 
the  subject.  This  is  not  only  so  in  the  human  species;  but  I 
have  more  than  once  observed  in  dogs,  under  an  apprehension  of 
punishment,  that  they  have  writhed  their  bodies,  and  yelped,  and 
howled  as  if  they  had  actually  felt  the  blows.  From  hence  I 
conclude  that  pain  and  fear  act  upon  the  same  parts  of  the  body 
and  in  the  same  manner,  though  somewhat  differing  in  degree; 
that  pain  and  fear  consist  in  an  unnatural  tension  of  the  nerves; 
that  this  is  sometimes  accompanied  with  an  unnatural  strength, 
which  sometimes  suddenly  changes  into  an  extraordinary  weak¬ 
ness;  that  these  effects  often  come  on  alternately,  and  are  some¬ 
times  mixed  with  each  other.  This  is  the  nature  of  all  convulsive 
agitations,  especially  in  weaker  subjects,  which  are  the  most  liable 
to  the  severest  impressions  of  pain  and  fear.  The  only  differ¬ 
ence  between  pain  and  terror  is  that  things  which  cause  pain 
operate  on  the  mind  by  the  intervention  of  the  body;  whereas, 
things  that  cause  terror  generally  affect  the  bodily  organs  by  the 
operation  of  the  mind  suggesting  the  danger;  but  both  agreeing, 
either  primarily  or  secondarily,  in  producing  a  tension,  contraction,, 
or  a  violent  emotion  of  the  nerves,  they  agree  likewise  in  every¬ 
thing  else.  For  it  appears  very  clearly  to  me,  from  this,  as  well 
as  from  many  other  examples,  that  when  the  body  is  disposed, 
by  any  means  whatsoever,  to  such  emotions  as  it  would  acquire 
by  the  means  of  a  certain  passion,  it  will  of  itself  excite  some¬ 
thing  very  like  that  passion  in  the  mind. 


Section  IV 
(continued) 

To  this  purpose  Mr.  Spon,  in  his  (<  Recherches  d’ Antiquity, y> 
gives  us  a  curious  story  of  the  celebrated  physiognomist  Cam- 
panella.  This  man,  it  seems,  had  not  only  made  very  accurate 


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EDMUND  BURKE 


observations  on  human  faces,  but  was  very  expert  in  mimicking” 
such  as  were  any  way  remarkable.  When  he  had  a  mind  to 

penetrate  into  the  inclinations  of  those  he  had  to  deal  with,  he 

composed  his  face,  his  gesture,  and  his  whole  body,  as  nearly  as  he 
could,  into  the  exact  similitude  of  the  person  he  intended  to  ex¬ 
amine;  and  then  carefully  observed  what  turn  of  mind  he  seemed 
to  acquire  by  this  change.  So  that,  says  my  author,  he  was  able 

to  enter  into  the  dispositions  and  thoughts  of  people  as  effec¬ 

tually  as  if  he  had  been  changed  into  the  very  men.  I  have 
often  observed  that  on  mimicking  the  looks  and  gestures  of 
angry,  or  placid,  or  frighted,  or  daring  men,  I  have  involuntarily 
found  my  mind  turned  to  that  passion  whose  appearance  I  en¬ 
deavored  to  imitate;  nay,  I  am  convinced  it  is  hard  to  avoid  it, 
though  one  strove  to  separate  the  passion  from  its  correspondent 
gestures.  Our  minds  and  bodies  are  so  closely  and  intimately 
connected  that  one  is  incapable  of  pain  or  pleasure  without  the 
other.  Campanella,  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking,  could  so 
abstract  his  attention  from  any  sufferings  of  his  body  that  he  was 
able  to  endure  the  rack  itself  without  much  pain;  and  in  lesser 
pains  everybody  must  have  observed  that,  when  we  can  employ 
our  attention  on  anything  else,  the  pain  has  been  for  a  time  sus¬ 
pended.  On  the  other  hand,  if  by  any  means  the  body  is  indis¬ 
posed  to  perform  such  gestures,  or  to  be  stimulated  into  such 
emotions,  as  any  passion  usually  produces  in  it,  that  passion  it¬ 
self  never  can  arise,  though  its  cause  should  be  never  so  strongly 
in  action;  though  it  should  be  merely  mental,  and  immediately 
affecting  none  of  the  senses,  —  as  an  opiate,  or  spirituous  liquors, 
shall  suspend  the  operation  of  grief,  or  fear,  or  anger,  in  spite 
of  all  our  efforts  to  the  contrary;  and  this  by  inducing  in  the 
body  a  disposition  contrary  to  that  which  it  receives  from  these 
passions. 


Section  V 

HOW  THE  SUBLIME  IS  PRODUCED 

Having  considered  terror  as  producing  an  unnatural  tension 
and  certain  violent  emotions  of  the  nerves,  it  easily  follows,  from 
wnat  we  have  just  said,  that  whatever  is  fitted  to  produce  such 
a  tension  must  be  productive  of  a  passion  similar  to  terror,  and 
consequently  must  be  a  source  of  the  sublime,  though  it  should 
have  no  idea  of  danger  connected  with  it.  So  that  little  remains 


EDMUND  BURKE 


725 


towards  showing  the  cause  of  the  sublime,  but  to  show  that  the 
instances  we  have  given  of  it  in  the  second  part  relate  to  such 
things  as  are  fitted  by  nature  to  produce  this  sort  of  tension, 
either  by  the  primary  operation  of  the  mind  or  the  body.  With 
regard  to  such  things  as  affect  by  the  associated  idea  of  danger, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  they  produce  terror,  and  act  by 
some  modification  of  that  passion;  and  that  terror,  when  suffi¬ 
ciently  violent,  raises  the  emotions  of  the  body  just  mentioned 
can  as  little  be  doubted.  But  if  the  sublime  is  built  on  terror, 
or  some  passion  like  it,  which  has  pain  for  its  object,  it  is  pre¬ 
viously  proper  to  inquire  how  any  species  of  delight  can  be  de¬ 
rived  from  a  cause  so  apparently  contrary  to  it.  I  say  delight, 
because,  as  I  have  often  remarked,  it  is  very  evidently  different 
in  its  cause  and  in  its  own  nature  from  actual  and  positive 
pleasure. 


Section  VI 

HOW  PAIN  CAN  BE  A  CAUSE  OF  DELIGHT 

Providence  has  so  ordered  it  that  a  state  of  rest  and  inaction, 
however  it  may  flatter  our  indolence,  should  be  productive  of 
many  inconveniences, —  that  it  should  generate  such  disorders  as 
may  force  us  to  have  recourse  to  some  labor  as  a  thing  abso¬ 
lutely  requisite  to  make  us  pass  our  lives  with  tolerable  satisfac¬ 
tion  ;  for  the  nature  of  rest  is  to  suffer  all  the  parts  of  our  bodies 
to  fall  into  a  relaxation  that  not  only  disables  the  members  from 
performing  their  functions,  but  takes  away  the  vigorous  tone  of 
fibre  which  is  reqiiisite  for  carrying  on  the  natural  and  neces¬ 
sary  secretions.  At  the  same  time,  in  this  languid  inactive  state, 
the  nerves  are  more  liable  to  the  most  horrid  convulsions  than 
when  they  are  sufficiently  braced  and  strengthened.  Melancholy, 
dejection,  despair,  and  often  self-murder  are  the  consequence  of 
the  gloomy  view  we  take  of  things  in  this  relaxed  state  of  body. 
The  best  remedy  for  all  these  evils  is  exercise  or  labor;  and 
labor  is  a  surmounting  of  difficulties,  an  exertion  of  the  contract¬ 
ing  power  of  the  muscles;  and  as  such  resembles  pain,  which 
consists  in  tension  or  contraction,  in  everything  but  degree.  La¬ 
bor  is  not  only  requisite  to  preserve  the  coarser  organs  in  a  state 
fit  for  their  functions;  but  it  is  equally  necessary  to  those  finer 
and  more  delicate  organs,  on  which  and  by  which,  the  imagina¬ 
tion  and  perhaps  the  other  mental  powers,  act.  Since  it  is  prob- 


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EDMUND  BURKE 


able  that  not  only  the  inferior  parts  of  the  soul,  as  the  passions 
are  called,  but  the  understanding  itself,  makes  use  of  some  fine 
corporeal  instruments  in  its  operation;  though  what  they  are  and 
where  they  are,  may  be  somewhat  hard  to  settle ;  but  that  it  does 
make  use  of  such  appears  from  hence:  that  a  long  exercise  of 
the  mental  powers  induces  a  remarkable  lassitude  of  the  whole 
body;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  great  bodily  labor  or  pain, 
weakens,  and  sometimes  actually  destroys,  the  mental  faculties. 
Now,  as  a  due  exercise  is  essential  to  the  coarse  muscular  parts 
of  the  constitution,  and  that  without  this  rousing  they  would  be¬ 
come  languid  and  diseased,  the  very  same  rule  holds  with  regard 
to  those  finer  parts  we  have  mentioned;  to  have  them  in  proper 
order,  they  must  be  shaken  and  worked  to  a  proper  degree. 


Section  VII 

EXERCISE  NECESSARY  FOR  THE  FINER  ORGANS 

As  common  labor,  which  is  a  mode  of  pain,  is  the  exercise  of 
the  grosser,  a  mode  of  terror  is  the  exercise  of  the  finer  parts 
of  the  system;  and  if  a  certain  mode  of  pain  be  of  such  a  na¬ 
ture  as  to  act  upon  the  eye  or  the  ear,  as  they  are  the  most 
delicate  organs,  the  affection  approaches  more  nearly  to  that 
which  has  a  mental  cause.  In  all  these  cases,  if  the  pain  and 
terror  are  so  modified  as  not  to  be  actually  noxious, — if  the  pain 
is  not  carried  to  violence,  and  the  terror  is  not  conversant  about 
the  present  destruction  of  the  person,  as  these  emotions  clear  the 
parts,  whether  fine  or  gross,  of  a  dangerous  and  troublesome  en¬ 
cumbrance,  they  are  capable  of  producing  delight;  not  pleasure, 
but  a  sort  of  delightful  horror,  a  sort  of  tranquillity  tinged  with 
terror,  which,  as  it  belongs  to  self-preservation,  is  one  of  the 
strongest  of  all  the  passions.  Its  object  is  the  sublime.  Its  high¬ 
est  degree  I  call  astonishment;  the  subordinate  degrees  are  awe, 
reverence,  and  respect,  which,  by  the  very  etymology  of  the 
words,  show  from  what  source  they  are  derived,  and  how  they 
stand  distinguished  from  positive  pleasure. 


EDMUND  BURKE 


727 


Section  VIII 

WHY  THINGS  NOT  DANGEROUS  PRODUCE  A  PASSION  LIKE  TERROR 

A  mode  of  terror  or  pain  is  always  the  cause  of  the  sublime. 
For  terror,  or  associated  danger,  the  foregoing  explication  is,  I 
believe,  sufficient.  It  will  require  some  more  trouble  to  show 
that  such  examples  as  I  have  given  of  the  sublime  are  capable 
of  producing  a  mode  of  pain,  and  of  being  thus  allied  to  terror, 
and  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  same  principles.  And  first  of 
such  objects  as  are  great  in  their  dimensions.  I  speak  of  visual 
objects. 


Section  IX 

WHY  VISUAL  OBJECTS  OF  GREAT  DIMENSIONS  ARE  SUBLIME 

Vision  is  performed  by  having  a  picture,  formed  by  the  rays 
of  light  which  are  reflected  from  the  object,  painted  in  one 
piece,  instantaneously,  on  the  retina,  or  last  nervous  part  of  the 
eye.  Or,  according  to  others,  there  is  but  one  point  of  any  ob¬ 
ject  painted  on  the  eye  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  perceived 
at  once;  but  by  moving  the  eye  we  gather  up  with  great  celer¬ 
ity  the  several  parts  of  the  object,  so  as  to  form  one  uniform 
piece.  If  the  former  opinion  be  allowed,  it  will  be  considered  that 
though  all  the  light  reflected  from  a  large  body  should  strike  the 
eye  in  one  instant,  yet  we  must  suppose  that  the  body  itself  is 
formed  of  a  vast  number  of  distinct  points,  every  one  of  which,  or 
the  ray  from  every  one,  makes  an  impression  on  the  retina.  So 
that,  though  the  image  of  one  point  should  cause  but  a  small  ten¬ 
sion  of  this  membrane,  another,  and  another,  and  another  stroke 
must  in  their  progress  cause  a  very  great  one  until  it  arrives  at 
last  to  the  highest  degree;  and  the  whole  capacity  of  the  eye, 
vibrating  in  all  its  parts,  must  approach  near  to  the  nature  of 
what  causes  pain,  and  consequently  must  produce  an  idea  of  the 
sublime.  Again,  if  we  take  it  that  one  point  only  of  an  object 
is  distinguishable  at  once,  the  matter  will  amount  nearly  to  the 
same  thing,  or  rather  it  will  make  the  origin  of  the  sublime  from 
greatness  of  dimension  yet  clearer.  For  if  but  one  point  is  ob¬ 
served  at  once,  the  eye  must  traverse  the  vast  space  of  such 
bodies  with  great  quickness,  and  consequently  the  fine  nerves 
and  muscles  destined  to  the  motion  of  that  part  must  be  very 


728 


EDMUND  BURKE 


much  strained;  and  their  great  sensibility  must  make  them  highly 
affected  by  this  straining.  Besides,  it  signifies  just  nothing  to 
the  effect  produced  whether  a  body  has  its  parts  connected  and 
makes  its  impression  at  once;  or,  making  but  one  impression  of 
a  point  at  a  time,  it  causes  a  succession  of  the  same  or  others 
so  quickly  as  to  make  them  seem  united;  as  is  evident  from  the 
common  effect  of  whirling  about  a  lighted  torch  or  piece  of 
wood,  which,  if  done  with  celerity,  seems  a  circle  of  fire. 


Section  X 

UNITY  —  WHY  REQUISITE  TO  VASTNESS  ' 

It  may  be  objected  to  this  theory  that  the  eye  generally  re¬ 
ceives  an  equal  number  of  rays  at  all  times,  and  that  therefore 
a  great  object  cannot  affect  it  by  the  number  of  rays  more  than 
that  variety  of  objects  which  the  eye  must  always  discern  whilst 
it  remains  open.  But  to  this  I  answer  that  admitting  an  equal 
number  of  rays,  or  an  equal  quantity  of  luminous  particles,  to 
strike  the  eye  at  all  times,  yet  if  these  rays  frequently  vary  their 
nature,  now  to  blue,  now  to  red,  and  so  on,  or  their  manner  of 
termination,  as  to  a  number  of  petty  squares,  triangles,  or  the 
like,  at  every  change,  whether  of  color  or  shape,  the  organ  has 
a  sort  of  relaxation  or  rest;  but  this  relaxation  and  labor  so 
often  interrupted  is  by  no  means  productive  of  ease;  neither  has 
it  the  effect  of  vigorous  and  uniform  labor.  Whoever  has  re¬ 
marked  the  different  effects  of  some  strong  exercise  and  some 
little  action  will  understand  why  a  teasing,  fretful  employment, 
which  at  once  wearies  and  weakens  the  body,  should  have  noth¬ 
ing  great;  these  sorts  of  impulses,  which  are  rather  teasing  than 
painful  by  continually  and  suddenly  altering  their  tenor  and  di¬ 
rection,  prevent  that  full  tension,  that  species  of  uniform  labor, 
which  is  allied  to  strong  pain,  and  causes  the  sublime.  The  sum 
total  of  things  of  various  kinds,  though  it  should  equal  the  num¬ 
ber  of  the  uniform  parts  composing  some  one  entire  object,  is 
not  equal  in  its  effect  upon  the  organs  of  our  bodies.  Besides 
the  one  already  assigned,  there  is  another  very  strong  reason  for 
the  difference.  The  mind  in  reality  hardly  ever  can  attend  dili¬ 
gently  to  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time;  if  this  thing  be  little 
the  effect  is  little,  and  a  number  of  other  little  objects  cannot 
engage  the  attention;  the  mind  is  bounded  by  the  bounds  of  the 


EDMUND  BURKE 


7*9> 

object;  and  what  is  not  attended  to,  and  what  does  not  exist, 
are  much  the  same  in  effect;  but  the  eye  or  the  mind  (for  in 
this  case  there  is  no  difference)  in  great,  uniform  objects,  does 
not  readily  arrive  at  their  bounds;  it  has  no  rest  whilst  it  con¬ 
templates  them;  the  image  is  much  the  same  everywhere.  So 
that  everything  great  by  its  quantity  must  necessarily  be  one,, 
simple  and  entire. 


Section  XI 

THE  ARTIFICIAL  INFINITE 

We  have  observed  that  a  species  of  greatness  arises  from  the 
artificial  infinite;  and  that  this  infinite  consists  in  a  uniform  suc¬ 
cession  of  great  parts:  we  observed,  too,  that  the  same  uniform 
succession  had  a  like  power  in  sounds.  But  because  the  effects 
of  many  things  are  clearer  in  one  of  the  senses  than  in  another, 
and  that  all  the  senses  bear  analogy  to  and  illustrate  one  an¬ 
other,  I  shall  begin  with  this  power  in  sounds,  as  the  cause  of 
the  sublimity  from  succession  is  rather  more  obvious  in  the  sense 
of  hearing.  And  I  shall  here,  once  for  all,  observe  that  an  in¬ 
vestigation  of  the  natural  and  mechanical  causes  of  our  passions, 
besides  the  curiosity  of  the  subject,  gives,  if  they  are  discovered, 
a  double  strength  and  lustre  to  any  rules  we  deliver  on  such 
matters.  When  the  ear  receives  any  simple  sound,  it  is  struck  by 
a  single  pulse  of  the  air,  which  makes  the  ear-drum  and  the 
other  membranous  parts  vibrate  according  to  the  nature  and  spe¬ 
cies  of  the  stroke.  If  the  stroke  be  strong,  the  organ  of  hearing 
suffers  a  considerable  degree  of  tension.  If  the  stroke  be  re¬ 
peated  pretty  soon  after,  the  repetition  causes  an  expectation  of 
another  stroke.  And  it  must  be  observed  that  expectation  itself 
causes  a  tension.  This  is  apparent  in  many  animals,  who,  when 
they  prepare  for  hearing  any  sound,  rouse  themselves  and  prick 
up  their  ears:  so  that  here  the  effect  of  the  sounds  is  consider¬ 
ably  augmented  by  a  new  auxiliary,  the  expectation.  But  though, 
after  a  number  of  strokes,  we  expect  still  more,  not  being  able 
to  ascertain  the  exact  time  of  their  arrival,  when  they  arrive, 
they  produce  a  sort  of  surprise,  which  increases  this  tension  yet 
further.  For  I  have  observed  that  when  at  any  time  I  have 
waited  very  earnestly  for  some  sound,  that  returned  at  intervals 
(as  the  successive  firing  of  cannon),  though  I  fully  expected  the 
return  of  the  sound,  when  it  came  it  always  made  me  start  a. 


73° 


EDMUND  BURKE 


little;  the  ear-drum  suffered  a  convulsion,  and  the  whole  body 
consented  with  it.  The  tension  of  the  part  thus  increasing  at 
every  blow,  by  the  united  forces  of  the  stroke  itself,  the  expecta¬ 
tion,  and  the  surprise,  it  is  worked  up  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  be 
capable  of  the  sublime;  it  is  brought  just  to  the  verge  of  pain. 
Even  when  the  cause  has  ceased,  the  organs  of  hearing,  being 
often  successively  struck  in  a  similar  manner,  continue  to  vibrate 
in  that  manner  for  some  time  longer;  this  is  an  additional  help 
to  the  greatness  of  the  effect. 


Section  XII 

THE  VIBRATIONS  MUST  BE  SIMILAR 

But  if  the  vibration  be  not  similar  at  every  impression,  it 
can  never  be  carried  beyond  the  number  of  actual  impressions; 
for  move  any  body,  as  a  pendulum,  in  one  way,  and  it  will  con¬ 
tinue  to  oscillate  in  an  arch  of  the  same  circle,  until  the  known 
causes  make  it  rest;  but  if,  after  first  putting  it  in  motion  in  one 
direction  you  push  it  into  another,  it  can  never  reassume  the 
first  direction;  because  it  can  never  move  itself,  and  consequently 
it  can  have  but  the  effect  of  that  last  motion,  whereas,  if  in  the 
same  direction  you  act  upon  it  several  times,  it  will  describe  a 
greater  arch,  and  move  a  longer  time. 


Section  XIII 

THE  EFFECTS  OF  SUCCESSION  IN  VISUAL  OBJECTS  EXPLAINED 

If  we  can  comprehend  clearly  how  things  operate  upon  one  of 
our  senses,  there  can  be  very  little  difficulty  in  conceiving  in 
what  manner  they  affect  the  rest.  To  say  a  great  deal  there¬ 
fore  upon  the  corresponding  affections  of  every  sense  would  tend 
rather  to  fatigue  us  by  a  useless  repetition  than  to  throw  any 
new  light  upon  the  subject  by  that  ample  and  diffuse  manner  in 
treating  it;  but  as  in  this  discourse  we  chiefly  attach  ourselves  to 
the  sublime,  as  it  affects  the  eye,  we  shall  consider  particularly 
why  a  successive  disposition  of  uniform  parts  in  the  same  right 
line  should  be  sublime,  and  upon  what  principle  this  disposition 
is  enabled  to  make  a  comparatively  small  quantity  of  matter 
produce  a  grander  effect  than  a  much  larger  quantity  disposed  in 


EDMUND  BURKE 


731 


another  manner.  To  avoid  the  perplexity  of  general  notions,  let 
us  set  before  our  eyes  a  colonnade  of  uniform  pillars  planted  in 
a  right  line ;  let  us  take  our  stand  in  such  a  manner  that  the'  eye 
may  shoot  along  this  colonnade,  for  it  has  its  best  effect  in  this 
view.  In  our  present  situation  it  is  plain  that  the  rays  from  the 
first  round  pillar  will  cause  in  the  eye  a  vibration  of  that  spe¬ 
cies;  an  image  of  the  pillar  itself..  The  pillar  immediately  suc¬ 
ceeding  increases  it;  that  which  follows  renews  and  enforces  the 
impression;  each  in  its  order  as  it  succeeds  repeats  impulse  after 
impulse,  and  stroke  after  stroke,  until  the  eye,  long  exercised  in 
one  particular  way,  cannot  lose  that  object  immediately;  and,  be¬ 
ing  violently  roused  by  this  continued  agitation,  it  presents  the 
mind  with  a  grand  or  sublime  conception.  But  instead  of  view¬ 
ing  a  rank  of  uniform  pillars,  let  us  suppose  that  they  succeed 
each  other,  a  round  and  a  square  one  alternately.  In  this  case 
the  vibration  caused  by  the  first  round  pillar  perishes  as  soon  as 
it  is  formed;  and  one  of  quite  another  sort  (the  square)  directly 
occupies  its  place;  which  however  it  resigns  as  quickly  to  the 
round  one;  and  thus  the  eye  proceeds,  alternately,  taking  up  one 
image  and  laying  down  another,  as  long  as  the  building  continues. 
From  whence  it  is  obvious  that,  at  the  last  pillar,  the  impression 
is  as  far  from  continuing  as  it  was  at  the  very  first;  because,  in 
fact,  the  sensory  can  receive  no  distinct  impression  but  from  the 
last;  and  it  can  never  of  itself  resume  a  dissimilar  impression: 
besides,  every  variation  of  the  object  is  a  rest  and  relaxation  to 
the  organs  of  sight;  and  these  reliefs  prevent  that  powerful  emo¬ 
tion  so  necessary  to  produce  the  sublime.  To  produce  therefore 
a  perfect  grandeur  in  such  things  as  we  have  been  mentioning, 
there  should  be  a  perfect  simplicity,  an  absolute  uniformity,  in 
disposition,  shape,  and  coloring.  Upon  this  principle  of  succes¬ 
sion  and  uniformity  it  may  be  asked  why  a  long  bare  wall  should 
not  be  a  more  sublime  object  than  a  colonnade,  since  the  succes¬ 
sion  is  in  no  way  interrupted;  since  the  eye  meets  no  check; 
since  nothing  more  uniform  can  be  conceived.  A  long  bare  wall 
is  certainly  not  so  grand  an  object  as  a  colonnade  of  the  same 
length  and  height.  It  is  not  altogether  difficult  to  account  for 
this  difference.  When  we  look  at  a  naked  wall,  from  the  even¬ 
ness  of  the  object,  the  eye  runs  along  its  whole  space,  and  arrives 
quickly  at  its  termination;  the  eye  meets  nothing  which  may  in¬ 
terrupt  its  progress;  but  then  it  meets  nothing  which  may  detain 
it  a  proper  time  to  produce  a  very  great  and  lasting  effect.  The 


732 


EDMUND  BURKE 


view  of  the  bare  wall,  if  it  be  of  a  great  height  and  length,  is 
undoubtedly  grand;  but  this  is  only  one  idea  and  not  a  repeti¬ 
tion  of  similar  ideas:  it  is  therefore  great,  not  so  much  upon  the 
principle  of  infinity  as  upon  that  of  vastness.  But  we  are  not  so 
powerfully  affected  with  any  one  impulse,  unless  it  be  one  of  a 
prodigious  force  indeed,  as  we  are  with  a  succession  of  similar 
impulses;  because  the  nerves  of  the  sensory  do  not  (if  I  may  use 
the  expression )  acquire  a  habit  of  repeating  the  same  feeling  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  continue  it  longer  than  its  cause  is  in  ac¬ 
tion;  besides,  all  the  effects  which  I  have  attributed  to  expecta¬ 
tion  and  surprise  in  Section  XI  can  have  no  place  in  a  bare  wall. 


Section  XIV 

LOCKE’S  OPINION  CONCERNING  DARKNESS  CONSIDERED 

It  is  Mr.  Locke’s  opinion  that  darkness  is  not  naturally  an 
idea  of  terror;  and  that,  though  an  excessive  light  is  painful  to 
the  sense,  the  greatest  excess  of  darkness  is  no  ways  trouble¬ 
some.  He  observes  indeed,  in  another  place,  that  a  nurse  or  an 
old  woman  having  once  associated  the  idea  of  ghosts  and  goblins 
with  that  of  darkness,  night  ever  after  becomes  painful  and  hor¬ 
rible  to  the  imagination.  The  authority  of  this  great  man  is 
doubtless  as  great  as  that  of  any  man  can  be,  and  it  seems  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  our  general  principle.  We  have  considered 
darkness  as  a  cause  of  the  sublime;  and  we  have  all  along  con¬ 
sidered  the  sublime  as  depending  on  some  modification  of  pain 
or  terror:  so  that  if  darkness  be  no  way  painful  or  terrible  to 
any  who  have  not  had  their  minds  early  tainted  with  supersti¬ 
tions,  it  can  be  no  source  of  the  sublime  to  them.  But,  with  all 
deference  to  such  an  authority,  it  seems  to  me  that  an  associa¬ 
tion  of  a  more  general  nature,  an  association  which  takes  in  all 
mankind,  may  make  darkness  terrible;  for  in  utter  darkness  it  is 
impossible  to  know  in  what  degree  of  safety  we  stand;  we  are 
ignorant  of  the  objects  that  surround  us;  we  may  every  moment 
strike  against  some  dangerous  obstruction;  we  may  fall  down  a 
precipice  the  first  step  we  take;  and  if  an  enemy  approach,  we 
know  not  in  what  quarter  to  defend  ourselves;  in  such  a  case 
strength  is  no  sure  protection;  wisdom  can  only  act  by  guess; 
the  boldest  are  staggered,  and  he  who  would  pray  for  nothing 
else  towards  his  defense,  is  forced  to  pray  for  light. 


EDMUND  BURKE 


733 


Zso  Ttdrep ,  dM.d  trb  *pb(rat  .un  yjipog  via?  ' A%cuwv‘ 

IJotrjrfov  (T  a'dprjv,  <?  oyOaXpotatv  idiadat’ 

’ Ev  fik  <pdei  Kai  oke«7<rov. — 

As  to  the  association  of  ghosts  and  goblins,  surely  it  is  more 
natural  to  think  that  darkness,  being  originally  an  idea  of  terror, 
was  chosen  as  a  fit  scene  for  such  terrible  representations  than 
that  such  representations  have  made  darkness  terrible.  The  mind 
of  man  very  easily  slides  into  an  error  of  the  former  sort;  but 
it  is  very  hard  to  imagine  that  the  effect  of  an  idea  so  univer¬ 
sally  terrible  in  all  times,  and  in  all  countries,  as  darkness,  could 
possibly  have  been  owing  to  a  set  of  idle  stories,  or  to  any  cause 
of  a  nature  so  trivial,  and  of  an  operation  so  precarious. 

Section  XV 

DARKNESS  TERRIBLE  IN  ITS  OWN  NATURE 

Perhaps  it  may  appear  on  inquiry  that  blackness  and  dark¬ 
ness  are  in  some  degree  painful  by  their  natural  operation,  in¬ 
dependent  of  any  associations  whatsoever.  I  must  observe  that 
the  ideas  of  darkness  and  blackness  are  much  the  same ;  and 
they  differ  only  in  this,  that  blackness  is  a  more  confined  idea. 
Mr.  Cheselden  has  given  us  a  very  curious  story  of  a  boy  who 
had  been  born  blind,  and  continued  so  until  he  was  thirteen  or 
fourteen  years  old ;  he  was  then  couched  for  a  cataract,  by 
which  operation  he  received  his  sight.  Among  many  remarkable 
particulars  that  attended  his  first  perceptions  and  judgments  on 
visual  objects,  Cheselden  tells  us  that  the  first  time  the  boy  saw 
a  black  object  it  gave  him  great  uneasiness;  and  that  some  time 
after,  upon  accidentally  seeing  a  negro  woman,  he  was  struck 
with  great  horror  at  the  sight.  The  horror,  in  this  case,  can 
scarcely  be  supposed  to  arise  from  any  association.  The  boy  ap¬ 
pears  by  the  account  to  have  been  particularly  observing  and 
sensible  for  one  of  his  age;  and  therefore  it  is  probable  if  the 
great  uneasiness  he  felt  at  the  first  sight  of  black  had  arisen 
from  its  connection  with  any  other  disagreeable  ideas,  he  would 
have  observed  and  mentioned  it.  For  an  idea,  disagreeable  only 
by  association,  has  the  cause  of  its  ill  effect  on  the  passions  evi¬ 
dent  enough  at  the  first  impression;  in  ordinary  cases  it  is,  in¬ 
deed,  frequently  lost;  but  this  is  because  the  original  association 
was  made  very  early,  and  the  consequent  impression  repeated 


734 


EDMUND  BURKE 


often.  In  our  instance  there  was  no  time  for  such  a  habit;  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  ill  effects  of  black  on  his 
imagination  were  more  owing  to  its  connection  with  any  dis¬ 
agreeable  ideas  than  that  the  good  effects  of  more  cheerful  colors 
were  derived  from  their  connection  with  pleasing  ones.  They 
had  both  probably  their  effects  from  their  natural  operation. 


Section  XVI 

WHY  DARKNESS  IS  TERRIBLE 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  examine  how  darkness  can  operate 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  cause  pain.  It  is  observable  that  still 
as  we  recede  from  the  light,  nature  has  so  contrived  it  that  the 
pupil  is  enlarged  by  the  retiring  of  the  iris  in  proportion  to  our 
recess.  Now,  instead  of  declining  from  it  but  a  little,  suppose 
that  we  withdraw  entirely  from  the  light;  it  is  reasonable  to 
think  that  the  contraction  of  the  radial  fibres  of  the  iris  is  pro- 
portionably  greater,  and  that  this  part  may  by  great  darkness 
come  to  be  so  contracted  as  to  strain  the  nerves  that  compose  it 
beyond  their  natural  tone,  and  by  this  means  to  produce  a  pain¬ 
ful  sensation.  Such  a  tension  it  seems  there  certainly  is  whilst 
we  are  involved  in  darkness;  for  in  such  a  state,  whilst  the  eye 
remains  open,  there  is  a  continual  nisus  to  receive  light.  This  is 
manifest  from  the  flashes  and  luminous  appearances  which  often 
seem  in  these  circumstances  to  play  before  it,  and  which  can  be 
nothing  but  the  effect  of  spasms,  produced  by  its  own  efforts  in 
pursuit  of  its  object.  Several  other  strong  impulses  will  produce 
the  idea  of  light  in  the  eye,  besides  the  substance  of  light  itself, 
as  we  experience  on  many  occasions.  Some  who  allow  dark¬ 
ness  to  be  a  cause  of  the  sublime  would  infer  from  a  dilatation 
of  the  pupil  that  a  relaxation  may  be  productive  of  the  sublime, 
as  well  as  a  convulsion ;  but  they  do  not,  I  believe,  consider 
that  although  the  circular  ring  of  the  iris  be  in  some  sense  a 
sphincter,  which  may  possibly  be  dilated  by  a  simple  relaxation, 
yet  in  one  respect  it  differs  from  most  of  the  other  sphincters 
of  the  body,  that  it  is  furnished  with  antagonist  muscles  which 
are  the  radial  fibres  of  the  iris.  No  sooner  does  the  circular 
muscle  begin  to  relax  than  these  fibres,  wanting  their  counter¬ 
poise,  are  forcibly  drawn  back,  and  open  the  pupil  to  a  consid¬ 
erable  wideness.  But  though  we  were  not  apprised  of  this,  I 


EDMUND  BURKE 


735 


believe  any  one  will  find,  if  he  open  his  eye  and  make  an  ef¬ 
fort  to  see  in  a  dark  place,  that  a  very  perceivable  pain  ensues. 
And  I  have  heard  some  ladies  remark  that  after  having  worked 
a  long  time  upon  a  ground  of  black  their  eyes  were  so  pained 
and  weakened  they  could  hardly  see.  It  may  perhaps  be  ob¬ 
jected  to  this  theory  of  the  mechanical  effect  of  darkness  that 
the  ill  effects  of  darkness  or  blackness  seem  rather  mental  than 
corporeal;  and  I  own  it  is  true  that  they  do  so;  and  so  do  all 
those  that  depend  on  the  affections  of  the  finer  parts  of  our 
system.  The  ill  effects  of  bad  weather  appear  often  no  other¬ 
wise  than  in  a  melancholy  and  dejection  of  spirits;  though,  with¬ 
out  doubt  in  this  case,  the  bodily  organs  suffer  first,  and  the 
mind  through  these  organs. 

Section  XVII 

THE  EFFECTS  OF  BLACKNESS 

Blackness  is  but  a  partial  darkness,  and  therefore  it  derives 
some  of  its  powers  from  being  mixed  and  surrounded  with  colored 
bodies.  In  its  own  nature  it  cannot  be  considered  as  a  color. 
Black  bodies,  reflecting  none  or  but  a  few  rays,  with  regard  to 
sight,  are  but  as  so  many  vacant  spaces  dispersed  among  the 
objects  we  view.  When  the  eye  lights  on  one  of  these  vacuities, 
after  having  been  kept  in  some  degree  cf  tension  by  the  play  of 
the  adjacent  colors  upon  it,  it  suddenly  falls  into  a  relaxation; 
out  of  which  it  as  suddenly  recovers  by  a  convulsive  spring.  To 
illustrate  this,  let  us  consider  that  when  we  intend  to  sit  on  a 
chair  and  find  it  much  lower  than  was  expected,  the  shock  is 
very  violent;  much  more  violent  than  could  be  thought  from  so 
slight  a  fall  as  the  difference  between  one  chair  and  another  can 
possibly  make.  If,  after  descending  a  flight  of  stairs,  we  attempt 
inadvertently  to  take  another  step  in  the  manner  of  the  former 
ones,  the  shock  is  extremely  rude  and  disagreeable;  and  by  no 
art  can  we  cause  such  a  shock  by  the  same  means  when  we  ex¬ 
pect  and  prepare  for  it.  When  I  say  that  this  is  owing  to  hav¬ 
ing  the  change  made  contrary  to  expectation,  I  do  not  mean 
solely  when  the  mind  expects.  I  mean,  likewise,  that  when  any 
organ  of  sense  is  for  some  time  affected  in  some  one  manner,  if 
it  be  suddenly  affected  otherwise  there  ensues  a  convulsive  mo¬ 
tion;  such  a  convulsion  as  is  caused  when  anything  happens 
against  the  expectance  of  the  mind.  And  though  it  may  appear 


736 


EDMUND  BURKE 


strange  that  such  a  change  as  produces  a  relaxation  should  im¬ 
mediately  produce  a  sudden  convulsion,  it  is  yet  most  certainly 
so,  and  so  in  all  the  senses.  Every  one  knows  that  sleep  is  a 
relaxation,  and  that  silence,  where  nothing  keeps  the  organs  of 
hearing  in  action,  is  in  general  fittest  to  bring  on  this  relaxation; 
yet  when  a  sort  of  murmuring  sounds  dispose  a  man  to  sleep, 
let  these  sounds  cease  suddenly,  and  the  person  immediately 
awakes;  that  is,  the  parts  are  braced  up  suddenly,  and  he  awakes. 
This  I  have  often  experienced  myself,  and  I  have  heard  the  same 
from  observing  persons.  In  like  manner,  if  a  person  in  broad 
daylight  were  falling  asleep,  to  introduce  a  sudden  darkness 
would  prevent  his  sleep  for  that  time,  though  silence  and  dark¬ 
ness  in  themselves,  and  not  suddenly  introduced,  are  very  favor< 
able  to  it.  This  I  knew  only  by  conjecture  on  the  analogy  of 
the  senses  when  I  first  digested  these  observations;  but  I  have 
since  experienced  it.  And  I  have  often  experienced,  and  so  have 
a  thousand  others,  that  on  the  first  inclining  towards  sleep,  we 
have  been  suddenly  awakened  with  a  most  violent  start;  and  that 
this  start  was  generally  preceded  by  a  sort  of  dream  of  our  fall¬ 
ing  down  a  precipice.  Whence  does  this  strange  motion  arise, 
but  from  the  too  sudden  relaxation  of  the  body,  which  by  some 
mechanism  in  nature  restores  itself  by  as  quick  and  vigorous  an 
exertion  of  the  contracting  power  of  the  muscles*  The  dream 
itself  is  caused  by  this  relaxation;  and  it  is  of  too  uniform  a 
nature  to  be  attributed  to  any  other  cause.  The  parts  relax  too 
suddenly,  which  is  in  the  nature  of  falling;  and  this  accident  of 
the  body  induces  this  image  in  the  mind.  When  we  are  in  a 
confirmed  state  of  health  and  vigor,  as  all  changes  are  then  less 
sudden,  and  less  on  the  extreme,  we  can  seldom  complain  of  this 
disagreeable  sensation. 


Section  XVIII 

THE  EFFECTS  OF  BLACKNESS  MODERATED 

Though  the  effects  of  black  be  painful  originally,  we  must 
not  think  they  always  continue  so.  Custom  reconciles  us  to 
everything.  After  we  have  been  used  to  the  sight  of  black  ob¬ 
jects,  the  terror  abates,  and  the  smoothness  and  glossiness,  or 
some  agreeable  accident,  of  bodies  so  colored,  softens  in  some 
measure  the  horror  and  sternness  of  their  original  nature;  yet 
the  nature  of  their  original  impression  still  continues.  Black  will 


EDMUND  BURKE 


737 


always  have  something’  melancholy  in  it,  because  the  sensory  will 
always  find  the  change  to  it  from  other  colors  too  violent;  or  if 
it  occupy  the  whole  compass  of  the  sight,  it  will  then  be  dark¬ 
ness;  and  what  was  said  of  darkness  will  be  applicable  here.  I 
do  not  purpose  to  go  into  all  that  might  be  said  to  illustrate  this 
theory  of  the  effects  of  light  and  darkness,  neither  will  I  examine 
all  the  different  effects  produced  by  the  various  modifications  and 
mixtures  of  these  two  causes.  If  the  foregoing  observations  have 
any  foundation  in  nature,  I  conceive  them  very  sufficient  to  ac¬ 
count  for  all  the  phenomena  that  can  arise  from  all  the  combina¬ 
tions  of  black  with  other  colors.  To  enter  into  every  particular, 
or  to  answer  every  objection,  would  be  an  endless  labor.  We 
have  only  followed  the  most  leading  roads;  and  we  shall  observe 
the  same  conduct  in  our  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  beauty. 


Section  XIX 

THE  PHYSICAL  CAUSE  OF  LOVE 

When  we  have  before  us  such  objects  as  excite  love  and  com¬ 
placency,  the  body  is  affected,  so  far  .  as.  I  could  observe,  much  in 
the  following  manner:  the  head  reclines  something  on  one  side: 
the  eyelids  are  more  closed  than  usual,  and  the  eyes  roll  gently 
with  an  inclination  to  the  object;  the  mouth  is  a  little  opened, 
and  the  breath  drawn  slowly,  with  now  and  then  a  low  sigh;  the 
whole  body  is  composed,  and  the  hands  fall  idly  to  the  sides.  All 
this  is  accompanied  with  an  inward  sense  of  melting  and  languor. 
These  appearances  are  always  proportioned  to  the  degree  of  beauty 
in  the  object,  and  of  sensibility  in  the  observer.  And  this  grada¬ 
tion  from  the  highest  pitch  of  beauty  and  sensibility,  even  to  the 
lowest  of  mediocrity  and  indifference,  and  their  correspondent  ef¬ 
fects,  ought  to  be  kept  in  view,  else  this  description  will  seem 
exaggerated,  which  it  certainly  is  not.  But  from  this  description 
it  is  almost  impossible  not  to  conclude  that  beauty  acts  by  re¬ 
laxing  the  solids  of  the  whole  system.  There  are  all  the  appear¬ 
ances  of  such  a  relaxation;  and  a  relaxation  somewhat  below  the 
natural  tone  seems  to  me  to  be  the  cause  of  all  positive  pleasure. 
Who  is  a  stranger  to  that  manner  of  expression  so  common  in 
all  times  and  in  all  countries,  of  being  softened,  relaxed,  ener¬ 
vated,  dissolved,  melted  away  by  pleasure  ?  The  universal  voice 
of  mankind,  faithful  to  their  feelings,  concurs  in  affirming  this 
11—47 


73§ 


EDMUND  BURKE 


uniform  and  general  effect;  and  although  some  odd  and  particu¬ 
lar  instance  may  perhaps  be  found,  wherein  there  appears  a  con¬ 
siderable  degree  of  positive  pleasure,  without  all  the  characters  of 
relaxation,  we  must  not  therefore  reject  the  conclusion  we  had 
drawn  from  a  concurrence  of  many  experiments;  but  we  must 
still  retain  it,  subjoining  the  exceptions  which  may  occur,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  judicious  rule  laid  down  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton  in  the 
third  book  of  his  <(  Optics. )}  Our  position  will,  I  conceive,  appear 
confirmed  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt,  if  we  can  show  that  such 
things  as  we  have  already  observed  to  be  the  genuine  constitu¬ 
ents  of  beauty  have  each  of  them  separately  taken  a  natural 
tendency  to  relax  the  fibres.  And  if  it  must  be  allowed  us  that 
the  appearance  of  the  human  body,  when  all  these  constituents 
are  united  together  before  the  sensory,  further  favors  this  opinion, 
we  may  venture,  I  believe,  to  conclude  that  the  passion  called 
love  is  produced  by  this  relaxation.  By  the  same  method  of  rea¬ 
soning  which  we  have  used  in  the  inquiry  into  the  causes  of  the 
sublime,  we  may  likewise  conclude  that  as  a  beautiful  object  pre¬ 
sented  to  the  sense,  by  causing  a  relaxation  of  the  body,  produces 
the  passion  of  love  in  the  mind,  so  if  by  any  means  the  passion 
should  first  have  its  origin  in  the  mind,  a  relaxation  of  the  out¬ 
ward  organs  will  as  certainly  ensue  in  a  degree  proportioned  to 
the  cause. 


Section  XX 

WHY  SMOOTHNESS  IS  BEAUTIFUL 

It  is  to  explain  the  true  cause  of  visual  beauty  that  I  call  in 
the  assistance  of  the  other  senses.  If  it  appears  that  smoothness 
is  a  principal  cause  of  pleasure  to  the  touch,  taste,  smell,  and 
hearing,  it  will  be  easily  admitted  a  constituent  of  visual  beauty; 
especially  as  we  have  before  shown  that  this  quality  is  found  al¬ 
most  without  exception  in  all  bodies  that  are  by  general  consent 
held  beautiful.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  bodies  which  are 
rough  and  angular  rouse  and  vellicate  the  organs  of  feeling,  caus¬ 
ing  a  sense  of  pain,  which  consists  in  the  violent  tension  or  con¬ 
traction  of  the  muscular  fibres.  On  the  contrary,  the  application 
of  smooth  bodies  relaxes;  gentle  stroking  with  a  smooth  hand 
allays  violent  pains  and  cramps,  and  relaxes  the  suffering  parts 
from  their  unnatural  tension;  and  it  has  therefore  very  often  no 
mean  effect  in  removing  swellings  and  obstructions.  The  sense 


EDMUND  BURKE 


739 


of  feeling  is  highly  gratified  with  smooth  bodies.  A  bed  smoothly 
laid,  and  soft — that  is,  where  the  resistance  is  every  way  incon¬ 
siderable  —  is  a  great  luxury  disposing  to  a  universal  relaxation, 
and  inducing  beyond  anything  else  that  species  of  it  called  sleep. 


Section  XXI 

SWEETNESS,  ITS  NATURE 

Nor  is  it  only  in  the  touch  that  smooth  bodies  cause  positive 
pleasure  by  relaxation.  In  the  smell  and  taste  we  find  all  things 
agreeable  to  them,  and  which  are  commonly  called  sweet,  to  be 
of  a  smooth  nature,  and  that  they  all  evidently  tend  to  relax 
their  respective  sensories.  Let  us  first  consider  the  taste.  Since 
it  is  most  easy  to  inquire  into  the  property  of  liquids,  and  since 
all  things  seem  to  want  a  fluid  vehicle  to  make  them  tasted  at 
all,  I  intend  rather  to  consider  the  liquid  than  the  solid  parts  of 
our  food.  The  vehicles  of  all  tastes  are  water  and  oil.  And 
what  determines  the  taste  is  some  salt,  which  affects  variously 
according  to  its  nature,  or  its  manner  of  being  combined  with 
other  things.  Water  and  oil,  simply  considered,  are  capable  of 
giving  some  pleasure  to  the  taste.  Water,  when  simple,  is  in¬ 
sipid,  inodorous,  colorless,  and  smooth;  it  is  found,  when  not 
cold,  to  be  a  great  resolver  of  spasms  and  lubricator  of  the  fibres; 
this  power  it  probably  owes  to  its  smoothness.  For  as  fluidity 
depends,  according  to  the  most  general  opinion,  on  the  round¬ 
ness,  smoothness,  and  weak  cohesion  of  the  component  parts  of 
any  body,  and  as  water  acts  merely  as  a  simple  fluid,  it  follows 
that  the  cause  of  its  fluidity  is  likewise  the  cause  of  its  relaxing 
quality — namely,  the  smoothness  and  slippery  texture  of  its  parts. 
The  other  fluid  vehicle  of  tastes  is  oil.  This  too,  when  simple, 
is  insipid,  inodorous,  colorless,  and  smooth  to  the  touch  and  taste. 
It  is  smoother  than  water,  and  in  many  cases  yet  more  relaxing. 
Oil  is  in  some  degree  pleasant  to  the  eye,  the  touch,  and  the 
taste,  insipid  as  it  is.  Water  is  not  so  grateful;  which  I  do  not 
know  on  what  principle  to  account  for  other  than  that  water  is 
not  so  soft  and  smooth.  Suppose  that  to  this  oil  or  water  were 
added  a  certain  quantity  of  a  specific  salt,  which  had  a  power  of 
putting  the  nervous  papillae  of  the  tongue  into  a  gentle  vibratory 
motion;  as  suppose  sugar,  dissolved  in  it;  the  smoothness  of  the  oil 
and  the  vibratory  power  of  the  salt  cause  the  sense  we  call  sweet- 


74° 


EDMUND  BURKE 


ness.  In  all  sweet  bodies,  sugar,  or  a  substance  very  little  different 
from  sugar,  is  constantly  found.  Every  species  of  salt,  examined 
by  the  microscope,  has  its  own  distinct,  regular,  invariable  form. 
That  of  nitre  is  a  pointed  oblong;  that  of  sea  salt  an  exact  cube; 
that  of  sugar  a  perfect  globe.  If  you  have  tried  how  smooth 
globular  bodies,  as  the  marbles  with  which  boys  amuse  them¬ 
selves,  have  affected  the  touch  when  they  are  rolled  backward 
and  forward  and  over  one  another,  you  will  easily  conceive  how 
sweetness,  which  consists  in  a  salt  of  such  nature,  affects  the 
taste;  for  a  single  globe  (though  somewhat  pleasant  to  the  feel¬ 
ing),  yet  by  the  regularity  of  its  form,  and  the  somewhat  too 
sudden  deviation  of  its  parts  from  a  right  line,  is  nothing  near 
so  pleasant  to  the  touch  as  several  globes,  where  the  hand  gently 
rises  to  one  and  falls  to  another;  and  this  pleasure  is  greatly  in¬ 
creased  if  the  globes  are  in  motion,  and  sliding  over  one  another, 
for  this  soft  variety  prevents  that  weariness  which  the  uniform 
disposition  of  the  several  globes  would  otherwise  produce.  Thus 
in  sweet  liquors,  the  parts  of  the  fluid  vehicle,  though  most  prob¬ 
ably  round,  are  yet  so  minute  as  to  conceal  the  figure  of  their 
component  parts  from  the  nicest  inquisition  of  the  microscope, 
and  consequently,  being  so  excessively  minute,  they  have  a  sort 
of  flat  simplicity  to  the  taste,  resembling  the  effects  of  plain 
smooth  bodies  to  the  touch;  for  if  a  body  be  composed  of  round 
parts  excessively  small,  and  packed  pretty  closely  together,  the 
surface  will  be  both  to  the  sight  and  touch  as  if  it  were  nearly 
plain  and  smooth.  It  is  clear  from  their  unveiling  their  figure 
to  the  microscope  that  the  particles  of  sugar  are  considerably 
larger  than  those  of  water  or  oil,  and  consequently  that  their 
effects  from  their  roundness  will  be  more  distinct  and  palpable  to 
the  nervous  papillse  of  that  nice  organ  the  tongue:  they  will  in¬ 
duce  that  sense  called  sweetness,  which  in  a  weak  manner  we 
discover  in  oil,  and  in  a  yet  weaker,  in  water;  for,  insipid  as  they 
are,  water  and  oil  are  in  some  degree  sweet,  and  it  may  be  ob¬ 
served  that  insipid  things  of  all  kinds  approach  more  nearly  to 
the  nature  of  sweetness  than  to  that  of  any  other  taste. 


EDMUND  BURKE 


74I 


Section  XXII 

SWEETNESS  RELAXING 

In  the  other  senses  we  have  remarked  that  smooth  things  are 
relaxing.  Now  it  ought  to  appear  that  sweet  things,  which  are 
the  smooth  of  taste,  are  relaxing  too.  It  is  remarkable  that  in 
some  languages  soft  and  sweet  have  but  one  name.  Doux  in 
French  signifies  soft  as  well  as  sweet.  The  Latin  Dulcis  and  the 
Italian  Dolce  have  in  many  cases  the  same  double  signification. 
That  sweet  things  are  generally  relaxing  is  evident,  because  all 
such,  especially  those  which  are  most  oily,  taken  frequently,  or  in 
a  large  quantity,  very  much  enfeeble  the  tone  of  the  stomach. 
Sweet  smells,  which  bear  a  great  affinity  to  sweet  tastes,  relax 
very  remarkably.  The  smell  of  flowers  disposes  people  to  drowsi¬ 
ness;  and  this  relaxing  effect  is  further  apparent  from  the  preju¬ 
dice  which  people  of  weak  nerves  receive  from  their  use.  It 
were  worth  while  to  examine  whether  tastes  of  this  kind,  sweet 
ones,  tastes  that  are  caused  by  smooth  oils  and  a  relaxing  salt, 
are  not  the  original  pleasant  tastes.  For  many,  which  use  has 
rendered  such,  were  not  at  all  agreeable  at  first.  The  way  to 
examine  this  is  to  try  what  nature  has  originally  provided  for  us, 
which  she  has  undoubtedly  made  originally  pleasant,  and  to  ana¬ 
lyze  this  provision.  Milk  is  the  first  support  of  our  childhood. 
The  component  parts  of  this  are  water,  oil,  and  a  sort  of  a  very 
sweet  salt  called  the  sugar  of  milk.  All  these  when  blended 
have  a  great  smoothness  to  the  taste  and  a  relaxing  quality  to 
the  skin.  The  next  thing  children  covet  is  fruit,  and  of  fruits 
those  principally  which  are  sweet;  and  every  one  knows  that  the 
sweetness  of  fruit  is  caused  by  a  subtle  oil  and  such  salt  as  that 
mentioned  in  the  last  section.  Afterwards  custom,  habit,  the  de¬ 
sire  of  novelty,  and  a  thousand  other  causes,  confound,  adulterate, 
and  change  our  palates,  so  that  we  can  no  longer  reason  with 
any  satisfaction  about  them.  Before  we  quit  this  article,  we  must 
observe  that  as  smooth  things  are,  as  such,  agreeable  to  the  taste, 
and  are  found  of  a  relaxing  quality;  so,  on  the  other  hand,  things 
which  are  found  by  experience  to  be  of  a  strengthening  quality, 
and  fit  to  brace  the  fibres,  are  almost  universally  rough  and  pun¬ 
gent  to  the  taste,  and  in  many  cases  rough  even  to  the  touch. 
We  often  apply  the  quality  of  sweetness,  metaphorically,  to  visual 
objects.  For  the  better  carrying  on  this  remarkable  analogy  of 
the  senses,  we  may  here  call  sweetness  the  beautiful  of  the  taste. 


742 


EDMUND  BURKE 


Section  XXIII 

VARIATION,  WHY  BEAUTIFUL 

Another  principal  property  of  beautiful  objects  is  that  the 
line  of  their  parts  is  continually  varying  its  direction;  but  it  va¬ 
ries  it  by  a  very  insensible  deviation;  it  never  varies  it  so  quickly 
as  to  surprise,  or  by  the  sharpness  of  its  angle  to  cause  any 
twitching  or  convulsion  of  the  optic  nerve.  Nothing  long  con¬ 
tinued  in  the  same  manner,  nothing  very  suddenly  varied,  can 
be  beautiful,  because  both  are  opposite  to  that  agreeable  relaxa¬ 
tion  which  is  the  characteristic  effect  of  beauty.  It  is  thus  in 
all  the  senses.  A  motion  in  a  right  line  is  that  manner  of  mov¬ 
ing,  next  to  a  very  gentle  descent,  in  which  we  meet  the  least 
resistance;  yet  it  is  not  that  manner  of  moving  which,  next  to  a 
descent,  wearies  us  the  least.  Rest  certainly  tends  to  relax,  yet 
there  is  a  species  of  motion  which  relaxes  more  than  rest ;  a  gentle 
oscillatory  motion,  a  rising  and  falling.  Rocking  sets  children  to 
sleep  better  than  absolute  rest;  there  is  indeed,  scarce  anything 
at  that  age  which  gives  more  pleasure  than  to  be  gently  lifted 
up  and  down;  the  manner  of  playing  which  their  nurses  use  with 
children,  and  the  weighing  and  swinging  used  afterwards  by 
themselves  as  a  favorite  amusement,  evince  this  very  sufficiently. 
Most  people  must  have  observed  the  sort  of  sense  they  have  had 
on  being  swiftly  drawn  in  an  easy  coach  on  a  smooth  turf,  with 
gradual  ascents  and  declivities.  This  will  give  a  better  idea 
of  the  beautiful,  and  point  out  its  probable  cause  better,  than 
almost  anything  else.  On  the  contrary,  when  one  is  hurried  over 
a  rough,  rocky,  broken  road,  the  pain  felt  by  these  sudden  in¬ 
equalities  shows  why  similar  sights,  feelings,  and  sounds  are  so 
contrary  to  beauty;  and  with  regard  to  the  feeling,  it  is  exactly 
the  same  in  its  effect,  or  very  nearly  the  same,  whether,  for  in¬ 
stance,  I  move  my  hand  along  the  surface  of  a  body  of  a  certain 
shape,  or  whether  such  a  body  is  moved  along  my  hand.  But  to 
bring  this  analogy  of  the  senses  home  to  the  eye;  if  a  body  pre¬ 
sented  to  that  sense  has  such  a  waving  surface  that  the  rays  of 
light  reflected  from  it  are  in  a  continual  insensible  deviation  from 
the  strongest  to  the  weakest  (which  is  always  the  case  in  a  sur¬ 
face  gradually  unequal),  it  must  be  exactly  similar  in  its  effects 
on  the  eye  and  touch;  upon  the  one  of  which  it  operates  directly; 
on  the  other  indirectly.  And  this  body  will  be  beautiful  if  the 


EDMUND  BURKE 


743 


lines  which  compose  its  surface  are  not  continued,  even  so  varied, 
in  a  manner  that  may  weary  or  dissipate  the  attention.  The 
variation  itself  must  be  continually  varied. 

Section  XXIV 

CONCERNING  SMALLNESS 

To  avoid  a  sameness  which  may  arise  from  the  too  frequent 
repetition  of  the  same  reasonings,  and  of  illustrations  of  the  same 
nature,  I  will  not  enter  very  minutely  into  every  particular  that 
regards  beauty,  as  it  is  founded  on  the  disposition  of  its'  quan¬ 
tity,  or  its  quantity  itself.  In  speaking  of  the  magnitude  of 
bodies  there  is  great  uncertainty,  because  the  ideas  of  great  and 
small  are  terms  almost  entirely  relative  to  the  species  of  the  ob¬ 
jects,  which  are  infinite.  It  is  true  that  having  once  fixed  the 
species  of  any  object  and  the  dimensions  common  in  the  indi¬ 
viduals  of  that  species,  we  may  observe  some  that  exceed,  and 
some  that  fall  short  of,  the  ordinary  standard;  those  which 
greatly  exceed  are,  by  that  excess,  provided  the  species  itself  be 
not  very  small,  rather  great  and  terrible  than  beautiful.  But  as 
in  the  animal  world,  and  in  a  good  measure  in  the  vegetable 
world  likewise,  the  qualities  that  constitute  beauty  may  possibly 
be  united  to  things  of  greater  dimensions;  when  they  are  so 
united,  they  constitute  a  species  something  different  both  from 
the  sublime  and  beautiful,  which  I  have  before  called  fine:  but 
this  kind,  I  imagine,  has  not  such  a  power  on  the  passions  either 
as  vast  bodies  have  which  are  endued  with  the  correspondent 
qualities  of  the  sublime,  or  as  the  qualities  of  beauty  have  when 
united  in  a  small  object.  The  affection  produced  by  large  bod¬ 
ies  adorned  with  the  spoils  of  beauty  is  a  tension  continually 
relieved;  which  approaches  to  the  nature  of  mediocrity.  But  if 
I  were  to  say  how  I  find  myself  affected  upon  such  occasions,  I 
should  say  that  the  sublime  suffers  less  by  being  united  to  some 
of  the  qualities  of  beauty,  than  beauty  does  by  being  joined  to 
greatness  of  quantity,  or  any  other  properties  of  the  sublime. 
There  is  something  so  overruling  in  whatever  inspires  us  with 
awe,  in  all  things  which  belong  ever  so  remotely  to  terror,  that 
nothing  else  can  stand  in  their  presence.  There  lie  the  qualities 
of  beauty  either  dead  or  inoperative;  or  at  most  exerted  to  mol¬ 
lify  the  rigor  and  sternness  of  the  terror,  which  is  the  natural 
concomitant  of  greatness.  Besides  the  extraordinary  great  in 


744 


EDMUND  BURKE 


every  species,  the  opposite  to  this,  the  dwarfish  and  diminutive, 
ought  to  be  considered.  Littleness,  merely  as  such,  has  nothing 
contrary  to  the  idea  of  beauty.  The  humming  bird,  both  in 
shape  and  coloring,  yields  to  none  of  the  winged  species,  of 
which  it  is  the  least ;  and  perhaps  his  beauty  is  enhanced  by 
his  smallness.  But  there  are  animals  which,  when  they  are  ex¬ 
tremely  small,  are  rarely  (if  ever)  beautiful.  There  is  a  dwarf¬ 
ish  size  of  men  and  women  which  is  almost  constantly  so  gross 
and  massive  in  comparison  of  their  height  that  they  present  us 
with  a  very  disagreeable  image.  But  should  a  man  be  found 
not  above  two  or  three  feet  high,  supposing  such  a  person  to 
have  all  the  parts  of  his  body  of  a  delicacy  suitable  to  such  a 
size,  and  otherwise  endued  with  the  common  qualities  of  other 
beautiful  bodies,  I  am  pretty  well  convinced  that  a  person  of 
such  a  stature  might  be  considered  as  beautiful;  might  be  the 
object  of  love;  might  give  us  very  pleasing  ideas  on  viewing 
him.  The  only  thing  which  could  possibly  interpose  to  check 
our  pleasure  is  that  such  creatures,  however  formed,  are  unusual, 
and  are  often  therefore  considered  as  something  monstrous.  The 
large  and  gigantic,  though  very  compatible  with  the  sublime,  is 
contrary  to  the  beautiful.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  a  giant 
the  object  of  love.  When  we  let  our  imagination  loose  in  ro¬ 
mance,  the  ideas  we  naturally  annex  to  that  size  are  those  of 
tyranny,  cruelty,  injustice,  and  everything  horrid  and  abominable. 
We  paint  the  giant  ravaging  the  country,  plundering  the  inno¬ 
cent  traveler,  and  afterwards  gorged  with  his  half-living  flesh; 
such  are  Polyphemus,  Cacus,  and  others,  who  make  so  great  a 
figure  in  romances  and  heroic  poems.  The  event  we  attend  to 
with  the  greatest  satisfaction  is  their  defeat  and  death.  I  do  not 
remember,  in  all  that  multitude  of  deaths  with  which  the  «  Iliad » 
is  filled,  that  the  fall  of  any  man,  remarkable  for  his  great  stat¬ 
ure  and  strength,  touches  us  with  pity ;  nor  does  it  appear  that 
the  author,  so  well  read  in  human  nature,  ever  intended  it 
should.  It  is  Simoisius,  in  the  soft  bloom  of  youth,  torn  from 
his  parents,  who  tremble  for  a  courage  so  ill  suited  to  his 
strength ;  it  is  another,  hurried  by  war  from  the  new  embraces 
of  his  bride,  young  and  fair,  and  a  novice  to  the  field,  who  melts 
us  by  his  untimely  fate.  Achilles,  in  spite  of  the  many  qualities 
of  beauty  which  Homer  has  bestowed  on  his  outward  form,  and 
the  many  great  virtues  with  which  he  has  adorned  his  mind',  can 
never  make  us  love  him.  It  may  be  observed  that  Homer  has 


EDMUND  BURKE 


745 


given  the  Trojans,  whose  fate  he  has  designed  to  excite  our 
compassion,  infinitely  more  of  the  amiable,  social  virtues  than  he 
has  distributed  among  his  Greeks.  With  regard  to  the  Trojans, 
the  passion  he  chooses  to  raise  is  pity;  pity  is  a  passion  founded 
on  love;  and  these  lesser,  and  if  I  may  say  domestic,  virtues 
are  certainly  the  most  amiable.  But  he  has  made  the  Greeks 
far  their  superiors  in  the  politic  and  military  virtues.  The  coun¬ 
cils  of  Priam  are  weak;  the  arms  of  Hector  comparatively  fee¬ 
ble;  his  courage  far  below  that  of  Achilles.  Yet  we  love  Priam 
more  than  Agamemnon,  and  Hector  more  than  his  conqueror 
Achilles.  Admiration  is  the  passion  which  Homer  would  excite 
in  favor  of  the  Greeks,  and  he  has  done  it  by  bestowing  on 
them  the  virtues  which  have  but  little  to  do  with  love.  This 
short  digression  is  perhaps  not  wholly  beside  our  purpose,  where 
our  business  is  to  show  that  objects  of  great  dimensions  are  in¬ 
compatible  with  beauty,  the  more  incompatible  as  they  are 
greater;  whereas  the  small,  if  ever  they  fail  of  beauty,  this  fail¬ 
ure  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  their  size. 


Section  XXV 
of  color 

With  regard  to  color,  the  disquisition  is  almost  infinite;  but 
I  conceive  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  beginning  of  this  part 
are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  effects  of  them  all,  as  well  as  for 
the  agreeable  effects  of  transparent  bodies,  whether  fluid  or  solid. 
Suppose  I  look  at  a  bottle  of  muddy  liquor,  of  a  blue  or  red 
color;  the  blue  or  red  rays  cannot  pass  clearly  to  the  eye,  but 
are  suddenly  and  unequally  stopped  by  the  intervention  of  little 
opaque  bodies,  which  without  preparation  change  the  idea,  and 
change  it  too  into  one  disagreeable  in  its  own  nature,  conform¬ 
ably  to  the  principles  laid  down  in  Section  XXIV.  But  when 
the  ray  passes  without  such  opposition  through  the  glass  or  liquor, 
when  the  glass  or  liquor  is  quite  transparent,  the  light  is  some¬ 
times  softened  in  the  passage,  which  makes  it  more  agreeable 
even  as  light;  and  the  liquor  reflecting  all  the  rays  of  its  proper 
color  evenly,  it  has  such  an  effect  on  the  eye  as  smooth,  opaque 
bodies  have  on  the  eye  and  touch.  So  that  the  pleasure  here  is 
compounded  of  the  softness  of  the  transmitted,  and  the  evenness 
of  the  reflected  light.  This  pleasure  may  be  heightened  by  the 


746 


EDMUND  BURKE 


common  principles  in  other  things,  if  the  shape  of  the  glass  which 
holds  the  transparent  liquor  be  so  judiciously  varied  as  to  pre¬ 
sent  the  color  gradually  and  interchangeably,  weakened  and 
strengthened  with  all  the  variety  which  judgment  in  affairs  of 
this  nature  shall  suggest.  On  a  review  of  all  that  has  been  said 
of  the  effects  as  well  as  the  causes  of  both,  it  will  appear  that 
the  sublime  and  beautiful  are  built  on  principles  very  different, 
and  that  their  affections  are  as  different:  the  great  has  terror  for 
its  basis,  which,  when  it  is  modified,  causes  that  emotion  in  the 
mind  which  I  have  called  astonishment;  the  beautiful  is  founded 
on  mere  positive  pleasure,  and  excites  in  the  soul  that  feeling 
which  is  called  love.  Their  causes  have  made  the  subject  of  this 
fourth  part. 

Part  IV.  of  the  (<  Philosophical  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  of 
Our  Ideas  of  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful. })  Complete. 


1 


747 


JEAN  JACQUES  BURLAMAQUI 

(1694-1748) 

ilamaqui’s  <(  The  Principles  of  Natural  Right })  appeared  in 
1747.  Few  essays  have  done  more  to  influence  the  thought 
of  those  whose  intellectual  training  makes  them  most  influ¬ 
ential.  It  was  at  once  translated  into  English  and  other  languages, 
and  long  used  as  a  text-book.  (<The  Principles  of  Political  Right }> 
appeared  ten  years  later. 

Burlamaqui  was  born  at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  June  24th,  1694. 
Educated  in  the  University  of  Geneva,  he  spent  the  greater  part  of 
his  life  as  a  professor  of  Natural  Law  and  Ethics  in  his  alma  mater. 
His  useful  and  uneventful  life  closed  at  Geneva,  April  3d,  1748. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  NATURAL  RIGHT 

Right  is  frequently  taken  from  a  personal  quality,  for  a  power 
of  acting  or  faculty.  It  is  thus  we  say  that  every  man  has 
a  right  to  attend  to  his  own  preservation;  that  a  parent  has 
a  right  to  bring  up  his  children;  that  a  sovereign  has  a  right  to 
levy  troops  for  the  defense  of  the  state,  etc. 

In  this  sense  we  must  define  right  as  a  power  that  man  has 
to  make  use  of  his  liberty  and  strength  in  a  particular  manner, 
either  in  regard  to  himself,  or  in  respect  to  other  men,  so  far  as 
this  exercise  of  his  strength  and  liberty  is  approved  by  reason. 

Thus  when  we  say  that  a  father  has  a  right  to  bring  up  his 
children,  all  that  is  meant  thereby  is  that  reason  allows  a  father 
to  make  use  of  his  liberty  and  natural  force  in  a  manner  suitable 
to  the  preservation  of  his  children,  and  proper  to  cultivate  their 
understandings,  and  to  train  them  up  in  the  principles  of  virtue. 
In  like  manner,  as  reason  gives  its  approbation  to  the  sovereign 
in  whatever  is  necessary  for  the  preservation  and  welfare  of  the 
state,  it  particularly  authorizes  him  to  raise  troops  and  bring 
armies  into  the  field,  in  order  to  oppose  an  enemy;  and  in  con¬ 
sequence  hereof  we  say  he  has  a  right  to  do  it.  But,  on'  the 


748 


JEAN  JACQUES  BURLAMAQUI 


contrary,  we  affirm  that  a  prince  has  no  right,  without  a  par¬ 
ticular  necessity,  to  drag  the  peasant  from  the  plow,  or  to  force 
poor  tradesmen  from  their  families;  that  a  father  has  no  right 
to  expose  his  children  or  to  put  them  to  death,  etc.,  because 
these  things,  far  from  being  approved,  are  expressly  condemned 
by  reason. 

We  must  not,  therefore,  confound  simple  power  with  right.  A 
simple  power  is  a  physical  quality;  it  is  a  power  of  acting  in  the 
full  extent  of  our  natural  strength  and  liberty;  but  the  idea  of 
right  is  more  confined.  This  includes  a  relation  of  agreeableness 
to  a  rule,  which  modifies  the  physical  power  and  directs  its  op¬ 
erations  in  a  manner  proper  to  conduct  man  to  a  certain  end.  It 
is  for  this  reason  we  say  that  right  is  a  moral  quality.  It  is  true 
there  are  some  who  rank  power  as  well  as  right  among  the 
number  of  moral  qualities;  but  there  is  nothing  in  this  essen¬ 
tially  opposite  to  our  distinction.  Those  who  rank  these  two 
ideas  among  moral  entities  understand  by  power  pretty  near  the 
same  thing  as  we  understand  by  right;  and  custom  seems  to  au¬ 
thorize  this  confusion ;  for  we  equally  use,  for  instance,  paternal 
power  and  paternal  right,  etc.  Be  this  as  it  will,  we  are  not  to 
dispute  about  words.  The  main  point  is  to  distinguish  between 
physical  and  moral;  and  it  seems  that  the  word  right,  as  Puffen- 
dorf  himself  insinuates,  is  fitter  of  itself  than  power  to  express 
the  moral  idea.  In  short,  the  use  of  our  faculties  becomes  a 
right  only  so  far  as  it  is  approved  by  reason,  and  is  found  agree¬ 
able  to  this  primitive  rule  of  human  actions.  And  whatever  a 
man  can  reasonably  perform  becomes  in  regard  to  him  a  right, 
because  reason  is  the  only  means  that  can  conduct  him  in  a 
short  and  sure  manner  to  the  end  he  proposes.  There  is  noth¬ 
ing,  therefore,  arbitrary  in  these  ideas;  they  are  borrowed  from 
the  very  nature  of  things,  and,  if  we  compare  them  with  the 
foregoing  principles,  we  shall  find  they  flow  from  them  as  neces¬ 
sary  consequences. 

If  any  one  should  afterwards  inquire  on  what  foundation  it  is 
that  reason  approves  a  particular  exercise  of  our  strength  and 
liberty,  in  preference  to  another,  the  answer  is  obvious.  The  dif¬ 
ference  of  those  judgments  arises  from  the  very  nature  of  things 
and  their  effects.  Every  exercise  of  our  faculties  that  tends  of 
itself  to  the  perfection  and  happiness  of  man  meets  with  the  ap¬ 
probation  of  reason,  which  condemns  whatever  leads  to  a  con¬ 
trary  end. 


JEAN  JACQUES  BURLAMAQUI 


749 


Obligation  answers  to  right,  taken  in  a  manner  above  ex¬ 
plained,  and  considered  in  its  effects  with  regard  to  another 
person. 

What  we  have  already  said  concerning  obligation  is  sufficient 
to  convey  a  general  notion  of  the  nature  of  this  moral  quality. 
But  in  order  to  form  a  just  idea  of  that  which  comes  under  our 
present  examination,  we  are  to  observe  that  when  reason  allows 
a  man  to  make  a  particular  use  of  his  strength  and  liberty,  or, 
which  is  the  same  thing,  when  it  acknowledges  he  has  a  particu¬ 
lar  right,  it  is  requisite,  by  a  very  natural  consequence,  that  in 
order  to  ensure  this  right  to  man,  he  should  acknowledge  at  the 
same  time  that  other  people  ought  not  to  employ  their  strength 
and  liberty  in  resisting  him  in  this  point;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
that  they  should  respect  his  right,  and  assist  him  in  the  exercise 
of  it,  rather  than  do  him  any  prejudice.  From  this  the  idea  of 
obligation  naturally  arises;  which  is  nothing  more  than  a  restric¬ 
tion  of  natural  liberty  produced  by  reason;  inasmuch  as  reason 
does  not  permit  an  opposition  to  be  made  to  those  who  use  their 
right,  but  on  the  contrary,  obliges  everybody  to  favor  and  abet 
such  as  do  nothing  but  what  it  authorizes,  rather  than  oppose  or 
traverse  them  in  the  execution  of  their  lawful  designs. 

Right  therefore  and  obligation  are,  as  logicians  express  it, 
correlative  terms;  one  of  these  ideas  necessarily  supposes  the 
other,  and  we  cannot  conceive  a  right  without  a  corresponding 
obligation.  How,  for  example,  could  we  attribute  to  a  father  the 
right  of  forming  his  children  to  wisdom  and  virtue  by  a  perfect 
education,  without  acknowledging  at  the  same  time  that  children 
ought  to  submit  to  paternal  direction,  and  that  they  are  not  only 
obliged  not  to  make  any  resistance  in  this  respect,  but  moreover 
to  concur,  by  their  docility  and  obedience,  to  the  execution  of 
their  parents’  views  ?  Were  it  otherwise,  reason  would  be  no 
longer  the  rule  of  human  actions;  it  would  contradict  itself,  and 
all  the  rights  it  grants  to  man  would  become  useless  and  of  no 
effect;  which  is  taking  from  him  with  one  hand  what  it  gives 
him  with  the  other. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  right,  taken  for  a  faculty,  and  of  the 
obligation  thereto  corresponding.  It  may  be  generally  affirmed 
that  man  is  susceptible  of  these  two  qualities  as  soon  as  he  begins 
to  enjoy  life  and  sense.  Yet  we  must  make  some  difference  here 
between  right  and  obligation  in  respect  to  the  time  in  which 
these  qualities  begin  to  unfold  themselves  in  man.  The  obliga- 


75° 


JEAN  JACQUES  BURLAMAQUI 


tions  a  person  contracts  as  a  man  do  not  actually  display  their 
virtue  till  he  is  arrived  to  the  age  of  reason  and  discretion.  For, 
in  order  to  discharge  an  obligation,  we  must  be  first  acquainted 
with  it;  we  must  know  what  we  do,  and  be  able  to  square  our 
actions  by  a  certain  rule.  But  as  for  those  rights  that  are  cap¬ 
able  of  procuring  the  advantage  of  a  person  without  his  knowing 
anything  of  the  matter,  they  date  their  origin,  and  are  in  full 
from  the  very  first  moment  of  his  existence,  and  lay  the  rest  of 
mankind  under  an  obligation  of  respecting  them.  For  example, 
the  right  which  requires  that  nobody  should  injure  or  offend  us 
belongs  as  well  to  children,  and  even  to  infants  that  are  still  in 
their  mothers’  wombs,  as  to  adult  persons.  This  is  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  that  equitable  rule  of  the  Roman  law,  which  declares  that 
infants  who  are  as  yet  in  their  mothers’  wombs  are  considered 
as  already  brought  into  the  world  whenever  the  question  relates 
to  anything  that  may  turn  to  their  advantage.  But  we  cannot 
with  any  exactness  affirm  that  an  infant,  whether  already  come 
or  coming  into  the  world,  is  actually  subject  to  any  obligation 
with  respect  to  other  men.  This  state  does  not  properly  com¬ 
mence,  with  respect  to  man,  till  he  has  attained  the  age  of 
knowledge  and  discretion. 

Various  are  the  distinctions  of  rights  and  obligations;  but  it 
will  be  sufficient  for  us  to  point  out  those  only  that  are  most 
worthy  of  notice. 

In  the  first  place,  rights  are  natural  or  acquired.  The  former 
are  such  as  appertain  originally  and  essentially  to  man,  such  as 
are  inherent  in  his  nature  and  which  he  enjoys  as  man,  inde¬ 
pendent  of  any  particular  act  on  his  side.  Acquired  rights,  on 
the  contrary,  are  those  which  he  does  not  naturally  enjoy,  but 
are  owing  to  his  own  procurement.  Thus  the  right  of  providing 
for  our  preservation  is  a  right  natural  to  man;  but  sovereignty, 
or  the  right  of  commanding  a  society  of  men,  is  a  right  acquired. 

Secondly,  rights  are  perfect  or  imperfect.  Perfect  rights  are 
those  which  may  be  asserted  in  rigor,  even  by  employing  force 
to  obtain  the  execution,  or  to  secure  the  exercise  thereof  in  op¬ 
position  to  all  those  who  should  attempt  to  resist  or  disturb  us. 
Thus  reason  would  empower  us  to  use  force  against  any  one  who 
would  make  an  unjust  attack  on  our  lives,  our  goods,  or  our 
liberty.  But,  when  reason  does  not  allow  us  to  use  forcible 
methods  in  order  to  secure  the  enjoyment  of  the  rights  it  grants 
us,  then  these  rights  are  called  imperfect.  Thus,  notwithstanding 


JEAN  JACQUES  BURLAMAQUI 


75r 


reason  authorizes  those  who  of  themselves  are  destitute  of  means 
of  living  to  apply  for  succor  to  other  men,  yet  they  cannot,  in 
case  of  refusal,  insist  upon  it  by  force,  or  procure  it  by  open 
violence.  It  is  obvious,  without  our  having  any  occasion  to  men¬ 
tion  it  here,  that  obligation  answers  exactly  to  right,  and  is  more 
or  less  strong,  perfect,  or  imperfect,  according  as  right  itself  is 
perfect  or  imperfect. 

Thirdly,  another  distinction  worthy  of  our  attention  is  that 
there  are  rights  which  may  be  lawfully  renounced,  and  others 
that  cannot.  A  creditor,  for  example,  may  forgive  a  sum  due  to 
him  if  he  please,  either  in  the  whole  or  part;  but  a  father  can¬ 
not  renounce  the  right  he  has  over  his  children,  nor  leave  them 
in  an  entire  independence.  The  reason  of  this  difference  is  that 
there  are  rights,  which  of  themselves  have  a  natural  connection 
with  our  duties  and  are  given  to  man  only  as  means  to  perform 
them.  To  renounce  this  sort  of  rights  would  be  therefore  re¬ 
nouncing  our  duty,  which  is  never  allowed.  But  with  respect  to 
rights  that  no  way  concern  our  duties,  the  renunciation  of  them 
is  licit,  and  only  a  matter  of  prudence.  Let  us  illustrate  this 
with  another  example.  Man  cannot  absolutely,  and  without  any 
manner  of  reserve,  renounce  his  liberty;  for  this  would  be  mani¬ 
festly  throwing  himself  into  a  necessity  of  doing  wrong,  were  he 
so  commanded  by  the  person  to  whom  he  has  made  this  subjec¬ 
tion.  But  it  is  lawful  for  us  to  renounce  a  part  of  our  liberty  if 
we  find  ourselves  better  enabled  thereby  to  discharge  our  duties, 
and  to  acquire  some  certain  and  reasonable  advantage.  It  is 
with  these  modifications  we  must  understand  the  common  maxim, 
that  it  is  allowable  for  every  one  to  renounce  his  right. 

Fourthly,  right  in  fine  considered  in  respect  to  its  different 
objects  may  be  reduced  to  four  principal  species:  i.  The  right 
we  have  over  our  own  persons  and  actions,  which  is  called  Lib¬ 
erty.  2.  The  right  we  have  over  things  or  goods  that  belong  to 
us,  which  is  called  Property.  3.  The  right  we  have  over  the 
persons  and  actions  of  other  men,  which  is  distinguished  by  the 
name  of  Empire  or  Authority.  4.  And,  in  fine,  the  right  one  may 
have  over  other  men’s  things,  of  which  there  are  several  sorts. 
It  suffices,  at  present,  to  have  given  a  general  notion  of  these 
different  species  of  right. 


From  <(The  Principles  of  Natural  Law.* 


752 


LORD  BURLEIGH 

(William  Cecil,  Baron  Burleigh) 

(1520-1598) 

ord  Burleigh  wrote  only  one  essay,  but  it  gave  him  a  dis¬ 
tinct  place  in  English  literature  which  certainly  he  did  not 
either  expect  or  attempt.  No  handbook  of  English  litera¬ 
ture  is  considered  complete  without  it.  As  prime  minister  of  England 
for  forty  years  under  Elizabeth,  who  created  him  <(  Baron  of  Bur¬ 
leigh  ®  in  1571,  he  helped  to  make  English  history  at  one  of  its  most 
important  periods,  and  in  doing  so  won  for  himself  enduring  celebrity 
as  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  statesmen  who  have  made  England 
what  it  is.  He  was  born  at  Bourne,  Lincolnshire,  September  13th,  1520, 
and  died  at  London,  August  4th,  1598.  Among  the  best  known  of 
his  numerous  political  papers  is  that  entitled  (<  The  Execution  of  Jus¬ 
tice  in  England  for  the  Maintenance  of  Public  and  Christian  Peace.” 
He  was  in  many  things  civilized  beyond  his  day.  His  influence  pre¬ 
vented  the  persecution  of  both  Puritans  and  Catholics.  When  Cath¬ 
erine  de  Medici  attempted  to  bribe  him  to  become  her  secret  agent 
in  England  he  replied:  (<I  serve  only  God,  my  mistress,  and  my 
country.  ” 


THE  WELL  ORDERING  OF  A  MAN’S  LIFE 
Son  Robert:  — 

The  virtuous  inclinations  of  thy  matchless  mother,  by  whose 
tender  and  godly  care  thy  infancy  was  governed,  together  with 
thy  education  under  so  zealous  and  excellent  a  tutor,  puts  me  in 
rather  assurance  than  hope,  that  thou  art  not  ignorant  of  that 
summum  bonum ,  which  is  only  able  to  make  thee  happy  as  well 
in  thy  death  as  life;  I  mean  the  true  knowledge  and  worship  of 
thy  Creator  and  Redeemer,  without  which  all  other  things  are 
vain  and  miserable:  so  that  thy  youth  being  guided  by  so  suffi¬ 
cient  a  teacher,  I  make  no  doubt  but  he  will  furnish  thy  life 
with  divine  and  moral  documents;  yet  that  I  may  not  cast  off 
the  care  beseeming  a  parent  towards  his  child,  or  that  you  should 


LORD  BURLEIGH 


753 


have  cause  to  derive  thy  whole  felicity  and  welfare  rather  from 
others  than  from  whence  thou  receivedst  thy  breath  and  being, 
I  think  it  fit  and  agreeable  to  the  affection  I  bear  thee,  to  help 
thee  with  such  rules  and  advertisements  for  the  sqaring  of  thy 
life,  as  are  rather  gained  by  experience  than  much  reading;  to 
the  end  that  entering  into  this  exorbitant  age,  thou  mayest  be  the 
better  prepared  to  shun  those  scandalous  courses  whereunto  the 
world  and  the  lack  of  experience  may  easily  draw  thee.  And 
because  I  will  not  confound  thy  memory,  I  have  reduced  them 
into  ten  precepts;  and  next  unto  Moses’  tables,  if  thou  imprint 
them  in  thy  mind,  thou  shalt  reap  the  benefit,  and  I  the  content; 
and  they  are  these  following  :  — 


I 

When  it  shall  please  God  to  bring  thee  to  man’s  estate,  use 
great  providence  and  circumspection  in  choosing  thy  wife;  for 
from  thence  will  spring  all  thy  future  good  or  evil;  and  it  is  an 
action  of  life,  like  unto  a  stratagem  of  war,  wherein  a  man  can 
err  but  once.  If  thy  estate  be  good,  match  near  home  and  at 
leisure;  if  weak,  far  off  and  quickly.  Inquire  diligently  of  her 
disposition,  and  how  her  parents  have  been  inclined  in  their  youth ; 
let  her  not  be  poor,  how  generous  soever,  for  a  man  can  buy 
nothing  in  the  market  with  gentility;  nor  choose  a  base  and  un¬ 
comely  creature  altogether  for  wealth,  for  it  will  cause  contempt 
in  others  and  loathing  in  thee;  neither  make  choice  of  a  dwarf, 
nor  a  fool,  for  by  the  one  you  shall  beget  a  race  of  pigmies,  the 
other  will  be  thy  continual  disgrace,  and  it  will  yirke  thee  to 
hear  her  talk;  for  thou  shalt  find  it,  to  thy  great  grief,  that  there 
is  nothing  more  fulsome  than  a  she-fool. 

And  touching  the  guiding  of  thy  house,  let  thy  hospitality  be 
moderate  and  according  to  the  means  of  thy  estate;  rather  plen¬ 
tiful  than  sparing,  but  not  costly;  for  I  never  knew  any  man 
grow  poor  by  keeping  an  orderly  table;  but  some  consume  them¬ 
selves  through  secret  vices,  and  their  hospitality  bears  the  blame. 
But  banish  swinish  drunkards  out  of  thine  house,  which  is  a  vice 
impairing  health,  consuming  much,  and  makes  no  show.  I  never 
heard  praise  ascribed  to  the  drunkard,  but  for  the  well  bearing 
of  his  drink,  which  is  better  commendation  for  a  brewer’s  horse 
or  a  drayman  than  for  either  a  gentleman  or  a  serving  man. 
Beware  thou  spend  not  above  three  or  four  parts  of  thy  rev¬ 
enues,  nor  above  a  third  part  of  that  in  thy  house;  for  the  other 
n — 48 


754 


LORD  BURLEIGH 


two  parts  will  do  no  more  than  defray  thy  extraordinaries,  which 
always  surmount  the  ordinary  by  much:  otherwise  thou  shalt  live 
like  a  rich  beggar,  in  continual  want;  and  the  needy  man  can 
never  live  happily  or  contentedly;  for  every  disaster  makes  him 
ready  to  mortgage  or  sell;  and  that  gentleman  who  sells  an  acre 
of  land  sells  an  ounce  of  credit,  for  gentility  is  nothing  else  but 
ancient  riches;  so  that  if  the  foundation  shall  at  any  time  sink, 
the  building  must  need  follow.  So  much  for  the  first  precept. 

II 

Bring  thy  children  up  in  learning  and  obedience,  yet  without 
outward  austerity.  Praise  them  openly,  reprehend  them  secretly. 
Give  them  good  countenance  and  convenient  maintenance  accord¬ 
ing  to  thy  ability,  otherwise  thy  life  will  seem  their  bondage 
and  what  portion  thou  shalt  leave  them  at  thy  death  they  will 
thank  death  for  it,  and  not  thee.  And  I  am  persuaded  that  the 
foolish  cockering  of  some  parents,  and  the  overstern  carriage  of 
others,  causeth  more  men  and  women  to  take  ill  courses  than 
their  own  vicious  inclinations.  Marry  thy  daughters  in  time,  lest 
they  marry  themselves.  And  suffer  not  thy  sons  to  pass  the 
Alps,  for  they  shall  learn  nothing  there  but  pride,  blasphemy, 
and  atheism.  And  if  by  travel  they  get  a  few  broken  languages, 
that  shall  profit  them  nothing  more  than  to  have  one  meat 
served  in  divers  dishes.  Neither,  by  my  consent,  shalt  thou  train 
them  up  in  wars;  for  he  that  sets  up  his  rest  to  live  by  that 
profession  can  hardly  be  an  honest  man  or  a  good  Christian; 
besides  it  is  a  science  no  longer  in  request  than  use;  for  soldiers 
in  peace  are  like  chimneys  in  summer. 

III 

Live  not  in  the  country  without  corn  and  cattle  about  thee; 
for  he  that  putteth  his  hand  to  the  purse  for  every  expense  of 
household  is  like  him  that  putteth  water  in  a  sieve.  And  what 
provision  thou  shalt  want,  learn  to  buy  it  at  the  best  hand;  for 
there  is  one  penny  saved  in  four  betwixt  buying  in  thy  need 
and  when  the  markets  and  seasons  serve  fittest  for  it.  Be  not 
served  with  kinsmen,  or  friends,  or  men  intreated  to  stay;  for 
they  expect  much  and  do  little;  nor  with  such  as  are  amorous, 
for  their  heads  are  intoxicated.  And  keep  rather  two  too  few 
than  one  too  many.  Feed  them  well  and  pay  them  with  the 
most,  and  then  thou  mayest  boldly  require  service  at  their  hands. 


LORD  BURLEIGH 


755 


'  IV 

Let  thy  kindred  and  allies  be  welcome  to  thy  house  and 
table;  grace  them  with  thy  countenance  and  further  them  in  all 
honest  actions;  for  by  this  means  thou  shalt  so  double  the  bond 
of  nature  as  thou  shalt  find  them  so  many  advocates  to  plead  an 
apology  for  thee  behind  thy  back ;  but  shake  off  those  glow¬ 
worms,  I  mean  parasites  and  sycophants,  who  will  feed  and  fawn 
upon  thee  in  the  summer  of  prosperity,  but  in  adverse  storm 
they  will  shelter  thee  no  more  than  a  harbor  in  winter. 

V 

Beware  of  suretyship  for  thy  best  friends;  he  that  payeth 
another  man’s  debts  seeketh  his  own  decay;  but  if  thou  canst 
not  otherwise  choose,  rather  lend  thy  money  thyself  upon  good 
bonds,  although  thou  borrow  it;  so  shalt  thou  secure  thyself,  and 
pleasure  thy  friend.  Neither  borrow  money  of  a  neighbor  or  a 
friend,  but  of  a  stranger,  where  paying  it,  thou  shalt  hear  no 
more  of  it;  otherwise  thou  shalt  eclipse  thy  credit,  lose  thy  free¬ 
dom,  and  yet  pay  as  dear  as  to  another.  But  in  borrowing  of 
money  be  precious  of  thy  word,  for  he  that  hath  care  of  keeping 
days  of  payment  is  lord  of  another  man’s  purse. 

VI 

Undertake  no  suit  against  a  poor  man  without  receiving 
much  wrong;  for  besides  that  thou  makest  him  thy  compeer,  it 
is  a  base  conquest  to  triumph  where  there  is  small  resistance; 
neither  attempt  law  against  any  man  before  thou  be  fully  re¬ 
solved  that  thou  hast  right  on  thy  side;  and  then  spare  not  for 
either  money  or  pains;  for  a  cause  or  two  so  followed  and  ob¬ 
tained  will  free  thee  from  suits  a  great  part  of  thy  life. 

VII 

Be  sure  to  keep  some  great  man  thy  friend,  but  trouble  him 
not  with  trifles;  compliment  him  often  with  many  yet  small 
gifts,  and  of  little  charge;  and  if  thou  hast  cause  to  bestow  any 
great  gratuity,  let  it  be  something  which  may  be  daily  in  sight; 
otherwise  in  this  ambitious  age,  thou  shalt  remain  like  a  hop 
without  a  pole,  live  in  obscurity,  and  be  made  a  football '  for 
every  insulting  companion  to  spurn  at. 


756 


LORD  BURLEIGH 


VIII 

Towards  thy  superiors  be  humble,  yet  generous;  with  thine 
equals  familiar,  yet  respective;  towards  thine  inferiors  show  much 
humanity  and  some  familiarity,  —  as  to  bow  the  body,  stretch  forth 
the  hand,  and  to  uncover  the  head,  with  such  like  popular  com¬ 
pliments.  The  first  prepares  thy  way  to  advancement,  the  second 
makes  thee  known  for  a  man  well  bred,  the  third  gains  a  good 
report,  which  once  got  is  easily  kept;  for  right  humanity  takes 
such  deep  root  in  the  minds  of  the  multitude,  as  they  are  easilier 
gained  by  unprofitable  courtesies  than  by  churlish  benefits;  yet 
I  advise  thee  not  to  affect  or  neglect  popularity  too  much;  seek 
not  to  be  Essex;  shun  to  be  Raleigh. 

IX 

Trust  not  any  man  with  thy  life,  credit,  or  estate;  for  it  is 
mere  folly  for  a  man  to  enthrall  himself  to  his  friend,  as  though, 
occasion  being  offered,  he  should  not  dare  to  become  his  enemy. 

X 

Be  not  scurrilous  in  conversation,  nor  satirical  in  thy  jests; 
the  one  will  make  thee  unwelcome  to  all  company,  the  other 
pull  on  quarrels,  and  get  thee  hatred  of  thy  best  friends;  for 
suspicious  jests,  when  any  of  them  savor  of  truth,  leave  a  bitter¬ 
ness  in  the  minds  of  those  which  are  touched;  and,  albeit,  I  have 
already  pointed  at  this  inclusively,  yet  I  think  it  necessary  to 
leave  it  to  thee  as  a  special  caution;  because  I  have  seen  many 
so  prone  to  quip  and  gird,  as  they  would  rather  leese  their 
friend  than  their  jest;  and  if,  perchance,  their  boiling  brain  yield 
a  quaint  scoff,  they  will  travail  to  be  delivered  of  it  as  a  woman 
with  child.  These  nimble  fancies  are  but  the  froth  of  wit. 


75? 


ELIHU  BURRITT 

(1811-1879) 

lihu  Burritt,  <(  the  Learned  Blacksmith,®  was  one  of  those 
strong  original  thinkers  who  are  impelled  to  write  more  by 
the  strength  of  the  thought  itself  than  by  the  desire  for 
reputation.  The  man  who  learns  half  a  dozen  languages  at  a  black¬ 
smith’s  forge  is  always  likely  to  betray  himself  in  faults  of  style  and 
to  show  a  lack  of  information  on  points  which  are  familiar  to  those 
who  have  done  little  more  than  submit  apathetically  to  the  routine 
of  methodical  education.  But  if  he  be  a  real  thinker  as  Burritt  was, 
this  will  be  forgotten  for  the  sake  of  his  message.  Burritt’s  prose  is 
poetical  without  being  florid,  and  at  times  he  is  strikingly  eloquent. 
He  was  born  at  New  Britain,  Connecticut,  December  8th,  18 11,  and 
was  wholly  self-educated.  The  reputation  made  by  his  earlier  essays 
published  in  1848  as  (<  Sparks  from  the  Anvil®  led  him  to  give  up  the 
forge  and  devote  himself  to  literature  and  political  reforms  of  various 
kinds.  He  died  March  7th,  1879.  Besides  (<  Sparks  from  the  Anvil,® 
he  published  “Olive  Leaves®  and  “  Chips  from  Many  Blocks.® 


A  POINT  OF  SPACE 

The  diameter  of  the  earth’s  orbit  is,  as  it  were,  the  pocket  rule 
of  the  astronomer,  with  which  he  measures  distances  which 
the  mind  can  no  more  grasp  than  infinity.  This  star  meas¬ 
ure  is  one  hundred  and  ninety  millions  of  miles  in  length. 
This  the  astronomer  lays  down  on  the  floor  of  heaven,  and 
drawing  lines  from  its  extremities  to  the  nearest  fixed  star,  or  a 
centre,  he  finds  the  angle  thus  subtended  by  this  base  line  to 
be  not  quite  one  second!  By  the  simple  Rule  of  Three  he  then 
arrives  at  the  fact  that  the  nearest  fixed  star  is  21,000,000,000,000 
miles  distant. 

From  another  simple  calculation  it  follows  that  in  the  space 
around  our  solar  system  devoid  of  stars,  there  is  room  in  one 
dimension,  or  in  one  straight  line,  for  12,000  solar  systems;  in 
two  dimensions,  or  in  one  plane,  there  is  room  for  130,000,000  of 


75* 


ELIHU  BURRITT 


solar  systems;  and  in  actual  siderial  space  of  three  dimensions 
there  is  room  for  1,500,000,000,000  solar  systems  the  size  of  our 


own. 

Nay,  good  farmer,  do  not  look  so  unbelievingly.  Your  boy 
need  not  graduate  from  the  district  school  to  prove  all  this.  One 
and  one-half  million  millions  of  solar  systems  as  large  as  ours 
might  be  set  in  the  space  which  divides  between  it  and  its  near¬ 
est  neighbor.  And  if  we  might  assume  the  aggregate  population 
of  our  solar  system  to  be  20,000,000,000,  then  there  would  be 
room  enough  for  30,000,000,000,000,000,000  of  human  beings  to 
live,  love,  and  labor  in  the  worlds  that  might  be  planted  in  this 
same  starless  void. 

Nay,  good  man  of  the  tow  frock,  hold  on  a  moment  longer. 
Our  sun  is  but  a  dull,  hazy  speck  of  light  in  the  great  milky 
way,  and  Doctor  Herschel  says  he  discovered  fifty  thousand  just 
such  suns  in  that  highway  of  worlds,  in  a  space  apparently  a 
yard  in  breadth  and  six  in  length.  Think  of  that  a  moment! 
and  then  that  no  two  of  them  all  are  probably  nearer  each  other 
than  twenty  billions  of  miles;  and  then,  that  the  starless  space 
between  their  solar  systems  might  contain  1,500,000,000,000  of 
similar  systems!  Multiply  these  spaces  and  these  systems  by  a 
hundred  millions,  and  you  will  have  numbered  the  world  that 
a  powerful  glass  will  open  to  your  view,  from  one  point  of 
space. 

Again,  multiply  these  systems  by  twenty  thousand  millions, 
and  you  will  have  three  billion  trillions  of  human  beings,  who 
might  dwell  in  peace  and  unity  in  that  point  of  space  which 
Herschel’s  glass  would  disclose  to  your  vision. 

And  you  ask  despairingly,  What  is  man  ?  We  will  tell  you 
what  he  is  in  one  respect:  the  Creator  of  all  these  worlds  is  his 
God. 


Complete.  From  «  Thoughts  and  Things 
at  Home  and  Abroad. » 


THE  CIRCULATION  OF  MATTER 


The  earth  moves,  lives,  and  acts;  it  begets  and  sustains  life  in 
all  its  varieties  of  organization.  It  breathes,  and  its  breath 
becomes  an  atmosphere  as  essential  to  the  vegetable  as  to 
the  animal  creation.  That  atmosphere,  modified  to  every  genial 
temperature,  laden  with  sunbeams,  rain,  and  dewdrops,  respires 


ELIHU  BURRITT 


759 


upon  the  earth,  and  fills  its  veins  with  renovated  life.  The  ac¬ 
tion  of  solar  and  electric  heat  animates  the  digestive  process  of 
evaporation  and  distillation,  developing  the  chemical  qualities  of 
the  soil,  and  thus  generates  a  gastric  germinating  fluid,  which 
penetrates  everything  susceptible  of  expansion. 

It  gently  opens  the  serried  pores  of  the  acorn  and  the  grain 
of  wheat.  It  feeds  their  expanding  veins  with  a  lymphatic  ele¬ 
ment,  composed  of  all  the  elements  of  human  blood,  though  com¬ 
bined  in  another  form,  which  lacks  but  one  more  process  to  fit 
it  for  the  veins  of  man.  Like  man,  the  sturdy  oak  is  dust,  and 
unto  dust  it  returns.  It  is  not  a  mere  symmetrical  inflation  of 
the  acorn;  that  vital  fluid  supplied  it  with  a  substance  from  the 
earth  which  coalesced  with  the  properties  of  that  acorn,  and  hard¬ 
ened  it  into  wood  instead  of  flesh. 

Every  limb  and  leaf,  every  wart  and  wen  upon  that  gnarled 
trunk,  every  inch  of  its  iron  vertebrae,  has  been  developed  by  a 
process  of  nutrition  similar  to  that  which  feeds  the  bones,  nerves, 
and  muscles  of  the  human  body. 

The  forest,  the  field  of  grain,  the  prairie  and  luxuriant  meadow, 
and  all  the  animals  they  sustain,  are  merely  a  portion  of  the 
earth’s  surface  propelled  into  perpetual  circulation  by  this  organic 
system  of  everlasting  action.  Go  out  into  your  meadow,  into 
your  garden,  and,  striking  your  spade  into  the  rich  mold,  com¬ 
pute,  if  you  can,  how  many  forms  of  life  a  square  foot  of  that 
soil  has  circulated  since  <(  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the 
first  day.”  Look  at  that  gigantic  oak,  whose  Briarean  arms  have 
defied  the  tempests  of  a  hundred  years.  Conceive  for  a  moment 
the  remote  and  consecutive  history  of  the  elements  in  its  sturdy 
trunk,  its  stubborn  branches,  and  tenacious  roots.  The  matter 
that  lies  in  dormant  induration  in  that  tree,  in  another  form  may 
have  been  propelled  through  a  hundred  human  hearts,  and,  warmed 
into  human  flesh,  may  have  done  service  in  the  strong  muscles 
of  the  ox,  the  sinews  of  the  bear,  the  talons  of  the  vulture,  the 
feathers  of  the  eagle.  The  reorganized  substance  of  every  spe¬ 
cies  of  plants  and  grain  and  grass;  elements  that  spread  the 
rose  leaf,  and  mantled  in  the  cheek  of  beauty;  that  bleached  the 
snow-white  lily,  and  polished  the  forehead  of  lofty  genius;  that 
overarched  the  dome  of  thought,  and  bent  the  rainbow;  all  these 
may  lie  mingled  within  that  rough  bark.  Look  at  that  oak  again; 
it  stands  immovable  in  the  breeze;  but  the  great  system  of  or¬ 
ganic  action  is  upon  it,  hastening  the  dissolution  of  its  constitu- 


760 


ELIHU  BURRITT 


ent  elements,  and  propelling  them  through  other  combinations. 
Fifty  years  hence,  and  some  of  them  will  mingle  in  stalks  of  yel¬ 
low  wheat,  in  blades  of  grass  and  flowers  of  every  hue;  in  the 
veins  of  man,  beast,  bird;  and  some  will  stretch  the  insect’s  wing, 
and  lade  the  busy  bee  with  wax  and  honey  for  its  cell.  And 
ages  hence,  in  the  ceaseless  progress  of  its  circulation,  some  of 
the  substance  of  that  oak  may  fall  in  noiseless  dewdrops  upon 
the  place  where  it  now  towers  up  towards  heaven.  Yet  through 
all  the  ages  of  its  continuous  circulation,  not  a  grain  of  that  mat¬ 
ter  will  be  wasted,  annihilated,  or  lost.  Had  not  this  law  of  pres¬ 
ervation  remained  as  steadfast  as  any  other  law  of  God,  through 
every  process  of  composition  and  decomposition,  the  solid  globe, 
ere  this,  would  have  been  entirely  exhausted. 

Complete.  From  «  Thoughts  and  Things 
at  Home  and  Abroad. }> 


THE  FORCE  OF  GRAVITY  IN  THE  MORAL  WORLD 

In  the  material  universe  there  is  one  grand  loyal  law,  upon 
which  hang  all  the  laws  that  govern  matter  or  motion.  That 
law,  the  union  and  source  of  all  the  laws  known  to  the  phys¬ 
ical  world,  is  the  law  of  Gravitation.  In  its  object,  operation,  and 
effect,  it  is  to  the  material  world  just  what  the  royal  law  of  love 
is  to  the  moral.  To  every  atom  of  matter  in  the  universe  it  is 
the  command,  and  the  command  obeyed :  <(  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  soul,  mind,  and  strength,  and  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself }> ;  thou  shalt  attach  thyself  to  his  eternal 
throne  with  all  thy  capacity  of  adhesion,  and  draw  with  thee  thy 
fellow-atom  toward  the  same  centre.  Since  the  world  was  made, 
not  a  grain  of  sand,  nor  a  drop  of  rain  or  dew,  nor  a  vesicle  of 
air,  has  ever  broken  that  law;  and  there  has  been  peace,  perfect 
peace,  through  all  the  peopled  amplitudes  of  space.  Pervading 
the  whole  universe  with  its  socializing  influence,  it  attracts  parti¬ 
cle  to  particle,  planet  to  primary,  sun  to  sun,  system  to  system; 
mooring  all  the  creations  of  God  around  his  throne,  the  common 
centre  of  matter  and  of  mind.  And  there,  firm  and  peaceful, 
that  royal  law  holds  them,  while  they  make  music  with  the  har¬ 
mony  of  their  motions,  singing  as  they  revolve  in  the  orbits 
which  it  prescribed  them  when  eternity  was  young,  and  which 
shall  remain  unaltered  by  a  hair,  when  eternity  shall  be  old. 


ELIHU  BURRITT 


761 


Upon  the  almighty  and  omnipresent  force  of  that  law  depends 
the  destiny  of  worlds  which  geometry  never  measured,  the  con¬ 
dition  of  beings  outreaching  the  arithmetic  of  angels.  Should  it 
release  its  hold  upon  a  single  atom  of  matter  floating  along  the 
sunless  disk  of  nonexistence,  trembling  would  run  through  all 
those  innumerable  creations,  and  <(  signs  of  woe  unutterable  that 
all  was  lost. J)  Suppose,  now,  that  some  human  government 
should  undertake  to  suspend  the  operation  or  existence  of  this 
royal  law  of  the  physical  world;  and  suppose  that  its  puny  arm 
could  palsy  that  all-pervading,  concentrating  force;  what  mind 
could  not  conceive  the  awful  catastrophe  that  would  ensue 
throughout  the  material  universe  ?  Millions  of  millions  of  suns 
would  be  quenched  simultaneously  in  everlasting  night.  All  the 
worlds  they  lighted  and  led  would  crumble  in  their  orbits  into 
the  minutest  divisions  of  matter,  filling  the  whole  immensity  of 
space  with  hostile  atoms,  each  at  war  with  its  fellow,  repelling 
its  society,  and  dashing  on  in  its  centrifugal  madness,  to  <(  make 
confusion  worse  confounded.  ®  All  the  beings  that  peopled  those 
decomposed  worlds  would  float  promiscuous  and  dismembered 
over  the  black  surges  of  the  boundless  chaos;  and  not  a  throb 
of  life  nor  a  ray  of  light  would  beat  or  shine  amid  the  ruins  of 
the  universe.  Does  any  one  doubt  for  a  moment  that  all  this, 
and  more  than  we  can  conceive  of  ruin,  would  be  the  instan¬ 
taneous  consequence  of  destroying  the  great  law  of  gravitation  ? 
But  what  is  all  this  ?  What  to  God  and  his  moral  universe  is 
all  this  dire  disaster,  this  wreck  of  matter  and  crush  of  worlds  ? 
What  this  disruption  of  every  vein  of  life  and  form  of  beauty  ? 
What  is  all  this  to  that  other  and  more  dreadful  catastrophe 
which  war  would  produce,  when  it  reaches  up  and  essays  to  par¬ 
alyze,  with  its  iron  hand,  the  great  law  of  Love,  the  law  of  Gravi¬ 
tation  in  the  moral  world,  which  attracts  and  centres  around  the 
heart  of  God,  all  the  hearts  that  beat  with  spiritual  existence  ? 
Amid  the  decomposition  of  the  material  universe  every  undying 
spirit  would  be  safe  from  the  general  ruin,  nor  verge  a  hair 
from  its  moral  orbit,  nor  be  jostled  from  its  centripetal  tendency 
towards  its  great  Source  and  Centre.  But  in  that  other  act  of 
immeasurable  iniquity,  man  would  consign  the  moral  world  to  a 
chaos  infinitely  more  appalling  than  that  which  would  involve 
the  material  universe  should  he  strike  from  existence  the  law  of 
Gravity.  He  would  sever  every  ligament  of  attraction  that 
attached  heart  to  heart,  spirit  to  spirit,  angel  to  angel,  and  all 


762 


ELIHU  BURRITT 


created  beings  to  God.  He  would  set  the  universe  on  fire  with 
malignant  passions,  on  whose  red  billows  contending  spirits,  once 
blessed,  now  damned,  would  thrust  at  each  other’s  existence,  and 
curse  themselves  and  God.  That  act  would  put  a  sword  into 
every  angel’s  hand,  and  every  harp  in  heaven,  with  horrid  dis¬ 
cord,  would  summon  the  frenzied  and  battling  seraphs  to  mutual 
but  deathless  slaughter.  It  would  blast  the  foliage  of  life’s  fair 
tree,  turn  the  crystal  river  into  burning  pitch,  and  line  its  banks 
with  fighting  fiends.  Hate,  malignant  and  quenchless,  would 
burn  in  every  heart,  and  no  two  spirits  in  the  universe  would 
unite,  even  in  a  common  malevolence. 


Complete. 


7&3 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 

(•837-) 

he  traveler  who  stands  on  the  western  coast  of  Manhattan 
Island  can  step  to  the  right  and  reach  the  continent  of 
America,  or  to  the  left  and  wake  up  not  very  much  later 
in  Europe.  It  is  only  a  matter  of  taking  the  ferry  boat  or  the 
ocean  steamer  as  they  lie  side  by  side.  Paris  and  New  York  are 
neighbors.  All  the  great  cities  of  the  world  are  brought  into  close 
touch  intellectually,  morally,  and  immorally  by  steam  and  electricity. 
As  a  result  the  fin  de  silcle  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century  in 
America  stood  in  sore  need  of  John  Burroughs  and  of  men  like- 
minded  with  him,  bold  enough  to  turn  their  backs  on  the  inevitable 
artificiality  of  city-bred  literature  and  learn  from  the  infinite  simplici¬ 
ties  of  nature  that  only  the  most  natural  can  be  the  most  beautiful.  No 
one  moralizes  less  than  he,  but  no  mere  moralizer  could  have  done 
what  he  has  done  and  what  he  is  still  doing  to  restore  moral  health 
to  American  literature.  But  for  him  we  might  find  so  much  to  ad¬ 
mire  in  the  Villons  and  the  Verlaines  of  the  Parisian  pavement  that 
we  might  lose  the  higher  music  and  nobler  lesson  of  our  own  woods 
and  fields.  With  the  love  of  nature  which  inspired  Audubon  and  the 
philosophical  insight  of  Thoreau,  he  has  created  a  class  of  American 
essays  which  are  more  genuine,  more  natural,  and  more  attractive 
than  anything  in  the  related  literature  of  England.  He  will  not  be 
forgotten  while  White  of  Selborne  is  remembered  and  to  White’s 
keenness  of  vision  he  adds  the  ease  and  grace  of  Washington  Irving. 

He  was  born  on  a  farm  near  Roxbury,  New  York,  April  3d,  1837. 
After  experience  as  a  journalist  in  New  York  and  in  the  civil  service 
at  Washington,  he  retired  to  a  farm  in  his  native  State,  intending  to 
devote  himself  <(to  literature  and  fruit  culture.  *  If  he  has  thriven  in 
fruit  culture  as  in  literature,  he  has  done  well  indeed,  for  in  <(Pepac- 
ton,°  a  Birds  and  Poets, })  (<Wake  Robin,0  <(  Locusts  and  Wild  Honey,0 
and  in  essays  as  yet  uncollected,  he  has  earned  the  gratitude  of 
every  lover  of  nature.  He  is  still  writing  and  still  learning  from  the 
woods  and  fields  that  which  the  civilization  of  cities  and  libraries 
needs  as  the  salt  to  save  its  best  virtues  from  corruption. 


W.  V.  B. 


764 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


THE  ART  OF  SEEING  THINGS 

Ido  not  purpose  to  attempt  to  tell  my  reader  how  to  see  things, 
but  only  to  talk  about  the  art  of  seeing  things,  as  one  might 
talk  of  any  other  art.  One  might  discourse  about  the  art  of 
poetry,  or  of  painting,  or  of  oratory,  without  any  hope  of  making 
his  readers  or  hearers  poets  or  orators. 

The  science  of  anything  may  be  taught  or  acquired  by  study; 
the  art  of  it  comes  by  practice  or  inspiration.  The  art  of  seeing 
things  is  something  that  may  be  conveyed  in  rules  and  precepts; 
it  is  a  matter  vital  in  the  eye  and  ear,  yea,  in  the  mind  and  soul, 
of  which  these  are  the  organs.  I  have  as  little  hope  of  being 
able  to  tell  the  reader  how  to  see  things  as  I  would  have  in  try¬ 
ing  to  tell  him  how  to  fall  in  love  or  to  enjoy  his  dinner.  Either 
he  does  or  he  does  not,  and  that  is  about  all  there  is  of  it.  Some 
people  seem  born  with  eyes  in  their  heads,  and  others  with  but¬ 
tons  or  painted  marbles,  and  no  amount  of  science  can  make  the 
one  equal  to  the  other  in  the  art  of  seeing  things.  The  great 
mass  of  mankind  are,  in  this  respect,  like  the  rank  and  file  of  an 
army:  they  fire  vaguely  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy,  and  if  he 
is  hit  it  is  more  a  matter  of  chance  than  of  accurate  aim.  But 
here  and  there  is  the  keen-eyed  observer;  he  is  the  sharpshooter, 
his  eye  selects  and  discriminates,  and  his  purpose  goes  to  the 
mark. 

Even  the  successful  angler  seems  born,  and  not  made;  he  ap¬ 
pears  to  know  instinctively  the  ways  of  trout.  The  secret  is,  no 
doubt,  love  of  the  sport.  He  puts  something  on  his  hook  that 
attracts  stronger  than  essence  or  oil,  namely,  his  heart.  Love 
sharpens  the  eye,  the  ear,  the  touch;  it  quickens  the  feet,  it 
steadies  the  hand,  it  arms  against  the  wet  and  the  cold.  What 
we  love  to  do,  that  we  do  well.  To  know  is  not  all;  it  is  only 
half.  To  love  is  the  other  half.  Wordsworth’s  poet  was  con¬ 
tented  if  he  might  enjoy  the  things  which  others  understood. 
This  is  generally  the  attitude  of  the  young  and  of  the  poetic  na¬ 
ture.  The  man  of  science,  on  the  other  hand,  is  contented  if  he 
may  understand  the  things  that  others  enjoy:  that  is  his  enjoy¬ 
ment.  Contemplation  and  absorption  for  the  one;  investigation 
and  classification  for  the  other.  We  probably  all  have,  in  vary¬ 
ing  degrees,  one  or  the  other  of  these  ways  of  enjoying  nature; 
either  the  sympathetic  and  emotional  enjoyment  of  her  which  the 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


765 


young  and  the  artistic  and  the  poetic  temperament  have,  or  the 
enjoyment  through  our  knowing  faculties  afforded  by  natural  sci¬ 
ence,  or  it  may  be  the  two  combined,  as  they  certainly  were  in 
such  a  man  as  Tyndall. 

But  nothing  can  take  the  place  of  love.  Love  is  the  measure 
of  life :  only  so  far  as  we  love  do  we  really  live.  The  variety  of 
our  interests,  the  width  of  our  sympathies,  the  susceptibilities  of 
our  hearts  —  if  these  do  not  measure  our  lives,  what  does?  As 
the  years  go  by,  we  are  all  of  us  more  or  less  subject  to  two  dan¬ 
gers,  the  danger  of  petrifaction  and  the  danger  of  putrefaction; 
either  that  we  will  become  hard  and  callous,  crusted  over  with 
customs  and  conventions  till  no  new  ray  of  light  or  of  joy  can 
reach  us,  or  that  we  will  become  lax  and  disorganized,  losing  our 
grip  upon  the  real  and  vital  sources  of  happiness  and  power. 
Now,  there  is  no  preservative  and  antiseptic,  nothing  that  keeps 
one’s  heart  young,  like  love,  like  sympathy,  like  giving  one’s  self 
with  enthusiasm  to  some  worthy  thing  or  cause. 

If  I  were  to  name  the  three  most  precious  resources  of  life  I 
should  say  books,  friends,  and  nature;  and  the  greatest  of  these, 
at  least  the  most  constant  and  always  at  hand,  is  nature.  Nature 
we  have  always  with  us,  an  inexhaustible  storehouse  of  that  which 
moves  the  heart,  appeals  to  the  mind,  and  fires  the  imagination, 
—  health  to  the  body  and  joy  to  the  soul.  To  the  scientist  na¬ 
ture  is  a  storehouse  of  facts,  laws,  processes;  to  the  artist  she  is 
a  storehouse  of  pictures;  to  the  poet  she  is  a  storehouse  of  im¬ 
ages,  fancies,  a  source  of  inspiration;  to  the  moralist  she  is  a 
storehouse  of  precepts  and  parables;  to  all  she  may  be  a  source 
of  knowledge  and  joy. 

There  is  nothing  in  which  people  differ  more  than  in  their 
powers  of  observation.  Some  are  only  half  alive  to  what  is  go¬ 
ing  on  without  them  and  beside  them.  Others,  again,  are  keenly 
alive;  their  intelligence,  their  powers  of  recognition,  are  in  full 
force  in  eye  and  ear  at  all  times.  They  see  and  hear  everything, 
whether  it  directly  concerns  them  or  not.  They  never  pass  un¬ 
seen  a  familiar  face  on  the  street;  they  are  never  oblivious  of 
any  interesting  feature  or  sound  or  object  in  the  earth  or  sky 
about  them.  Their  power  of  attention  is  always  on  the  alert,  not 
by  conscious  effort,  but  by  natural  habit  and  disposition.  Their 
perceptive  faculties  may  be  said  to  be  always  on  duty.  They 
turn  to  the  outward  world  a  more  highly  sensitivized  mind  than 
other  people.  The  things  that  pass  before  them  are  caught  and 


766 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


individualized  instantly.  If  they  visit  new  countries  they  see  the 
characteristic  features  of  the  people  and  scenery  at  once.  The 
impression  is  never  blurred  or  confused.  Their  powers  of  ob¬ 
servation  suggest  the  sight  and  scent  of  wild  animals;  only, 
whereas  it  is  fear  that  sharpens  the  one,  it  is  love  and  curiosity 
that  sharpens  the  other.  The  mother  turkey  with  her  brood  sees 
the  hawk  when  it  is  a  mere  speck  against  the  sky;  she  is,  in  her 
solicitude  for  her  young,  thinking  of  hawks,  and  is  on  her  guard 
against  them.  Fear  makes  keen  her  eye.  The  hunter  does  not 
see  the  hawk  till  his  attention  is  thus  called  to  it  by  the  turkey, 
because  his  interests  are  not  endangered;  but  he  outsees  the  wild 
creatures  of  the  plain  and  mountain, —  the  elk,  the  antelope,  and 
the  mountain  sheep, —  he  makes  it  his  business  to  look  for  them, 
and  his  eye  carries  further  than  do  theirs. 

We  may  see  coarsely  and  vaguely,  as  most  people  do,  noting 
only  masses  and  unusual  appearances,  or  we  may  see  finely  and  dis¬ 
criminatingly,  taking  in  the  minute  and  the  specific.  In  a  collec¬ 
tion  of  stuffed  birds,  the  other  day,  I  observed  that  a  wood  thrush 
was  mounted  as  in  the  act  of  song,  its  open  beak  pointing  straight 
to  the  zenith.  The  taxidermist  had  not  seen  truly.  The  thrush 
sings  with  its  beak  but  slightly  elevated.  Who  has  not  seen  a 
red  squirrel  or  a  gray  squirrel  running  up  and  down  the  trunk 
of  a  tree  ?  But  probably  very  few  have  noticed  that  the  position 
of  the  hind  feet  is  the  reverse  in  the  one  case  from  what  it  is 
in  the  other.  In  descending  they  are  extended  to  the  rear,  the 
toe  nails  hooking  to  the  bark,  checking  and  controlling  the  fall. 
In  most,  pictures  the  feet  are  shown  well  drawn  up  under  the 
body  in  both  cases. 

People  who  discourse  pleasantly  and  accurately  about  birds 
and  flowers  and  external  nature  generally  are  not  therefore  good 
observers.  In  their  walks  do  they  see  anything  they  did  not 
come  out  to  see  ?  Is  there  any  spontaneous  or  unpremeditated 
seeing  ?  Do  they  make  discoveries  ?  Any  bird  or  creature  may 
be  hunted  down,  any  nest  discovered  if  you  lay  siege  to  it;  but 
to  find  what  you  are  not  looking  for,  to  catch  the  shy  winks  and 
gestures  on  every  side,  to  see  all  the  by-play  going  on  around 
you,  missing  no  significant  note  or  movement,  penetrating  every 
screen  with  your  eye-beams — that  is  to  be  an  observer;  that  is 
to  have  (<  an  eye  practiced  like  a  blind  man’s  touch, )} — a  touch 
that  can  distinguish  a  white  horse  from  a  black, —  a  detective  eye 
that  reads  the  faintest  signs.  When  Thoreau  was  at  Cape  Cod 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


767 


he  noticed  that  the  horses  there  had  a  certain  muscle  in  their 
hips  inordinately  developed  by  reason  of  the  insecure  footing  in 
the  ever-yielding  sand.  Thoreau’s  vision  at  times  fitted  things 
closely.  During  some  great  fete  in  Paris,  the  Empress  Eugenie 
and  Queen  Victoria  were  both  present.  A  reporter  noticed  that 
when  the  royal  personages  came  to  sit  down  Eugenie  looked  be¬ 
hind  her  before  doing  so,  to  see  that  the  chair  was  really  there, 
but  Victoria  seated  herself  without  the  backward  glance,  knowing 
there  must  be  a  seat  ready  for  her:  there  always  had  been  and 
there  always  would  be.  The  correspondent  inferred  that  the  in¬ 
cident  showed  the  difference  between  born  royalty  and  hastily 
made  royalty.  I  wonder  how  many  persons  in  that  vast  assem¬ 
bly  made  this  observation;  probably  very  few.  It  denoted  a  gift 
for  seeing  things. 

If  our  powers  of  observation  were  quick  and  sure  enough,  no 
doubt  we  should  see  through  most  of  the  tricks  of  the  sleight- 
of-hand  man.  He  fools  us  because  his  hand  is  more  dexterous 
than  our  eye.  He  captures  our  attention,  and  then  commands 
us  to  see  only  what  he  wishes  us  to  see. 

In  the  field  of  natural  history  things  escape  us  because  the 
actors  are  small  and  the  stage  is  very  large  and  more  or  less 
veiled  and  obstructed.  The  movement  is  quick  across  a  back¬ 
ground  that  tends  to  conceal  rather  than  expose  it.  In  the 
printed  page  the  white  paper  plays  quite  as  important  a  part  as 
the  type  and  the  ink;  but  the  book  of  nature  is  on  a  different 
plan:  the  page  rarely  presents  a  contrast  of  black  and  white,  or 
even  black  and  brown,  but  only  of  similar  tints,  gray  upon  gray, 
green  upon  green,  or  drab  upon  brown. 

By  a  close  observer  I  do  not  mean  a  minute,  cold-blooded 
specialist, — 

(< .  .  .  a  fingering  slave, 

One  that  would  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother’s  grave,  w — 

but  a  man  who  looks  closely  and  steadily  at  nature,  and  notes 
the  individual  features  of  tree,  and  rock,  and  field,  and  allows  no 
subtle  flavor  of  the  night  or  day,  of  the  place  and  season,  to  es¬ 
cape  him.  His  senses  are  so  delicate  that  in  his  evening  walk 
he  feels  the  warm  and  the  cool  streaks  in  the  air,  his  nose  de¬ 
tects  the  most  fugitive  odors,  his  ears  the  most  furtive  sounds. 
As  he  stands  musing  in  the  April  twilight  he  hears  that  fine, 


768 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


elusive  stir  and  rustle  made  by  the  angleworms  reaching  out 
from  their  holes  for  leaves  and  grasses;  he  hears  the  whistling 
wings  of  the  woodcock  as  she  goes  swiftly  by  him  in  the  dusk; 
he  hears  the  call  of  the  killdee  come  down  out  of  the  March 
sky;  he  hears  far  above  him  in  the  early  morning  the  squeaking 
cackle  of  the  arriving  blackbirds  pushing  north ;  he  hears  the 
soft,  prolonged,  lulling  call  of  the  little  owl  in  the  cedars  in  the 
early  spring  twilight;  he  hears  at  night  the  roar  of  the  distant 
waterfall,  and  the  rumble  of  the  train  miles  across  the  country  when 
the  air  is  <(  hollow )} ;  before  a  storm  he  notes  how  distant  objects 
stand  out  and  are  brought  near  on  those  brilliant  days  that  we 
call  (<  weather  breeders. }>  When  the  mercury  is  at  zero  or  lower, 
he  notes  how  the  passing  trains  hiss  and  simmer  as  if  the  rails 
or  wheels  were  red-hot.  He  reads  the  subtle  signs  of  the 
weather.  The  stars  at  night  forecast  the  coming  day  to  him; 
the  clouds  at  evening  and  at  morning  are  a  sign.  He  knows 
there  is  the  wet-weather  diathesis  and  the  dry-weather  diathesis, 
or,  as  Goethe  said,  water  affirmative  and  water  negative,  and  he 
interprets  the  symptoms  accordingly.  He  is  keenly  alive  to  all 
outward  impressions.  When  he  descends  from  the  hill  in  the 
autumn  twilight,  he  notes  the  cooler  air  of  the  valley  like  a  lake 
about  him;  he  notes  how,  at  other  seasons,  the  cooler  air  at 
times  settles  down  between  the  mountains  like  a  vast  body  of 
water,  as  shown  by  the  level  line  of  the  fog  or  the  frost  upon 
the  trees. 

The  modern  man  looks  at  nature  with  an  eye  of  sympathy 
and  love  where  the  earlier  man  looked  with  an  eye  of  fear  and 
superstition.  Hence  he  sees  more  closely  and  accurately;  science 
has  made  his  eye  steady  and  clear.  To  a  hasty  traveler  through 
the  land  the  farms  and  country  homes  all  seem  much  alike,  but 
to  the  people  born  and  reared  there,  what  a  difference!  They 
have  read  the  fine  print  that  escapes  the  hurried  eye  and  that  is 
so  full  of  meaning.  Every  horizon  line,  every  curve  in  hill  or 
valley,  every  tree  and  rock  and  spring  run,  every  turn  in  the 
road  and  vista  in  the  landscape,  has  its  special  features  and  makes 
its  own  impression. 

Scott  wrote  in  his  journal:  (<  Nothing  is  so  tiresome  as  walk¬ 
ing  through  some  beautiful  scene  with  a  minute  philosopher,  a 
botanist,  or  pebble  gatherer,  who  is  eternally  calling  your  atten¬ 
tion  from  the  grand  features  of  the  natural  picture  to  look  at 
grasses  and  chuckie-stanes.  *  No  doubt  Scott’s  large,  generous 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


769 


way  of  looking  at  things  kindles  the  imagination  and  touches  the 
sentiments  more  than  does  this  minute  way  of  the  specialist. 
The  nature  that  Scott  gives  us  is  like  the  air  and  the  water  that 
all  may  absorb,  while  what  the  specialist  gives  us  is  more  like 
some  particular  element  or  substance  that  only  the  few  can  ap¬ 
propriate.  But  Scott  had  his  specialties  too,  the  specialties  of 
the  sportsman;  he  was  the  first  to  see  the  hare’s  eyes  as  she  sat 
in  her  form,  and  he  knew  the  ways  of  grouse,  and  pheasants, 
and  trout.  The  ideal  observer  turns  the  enthusiasm  of  the  sports¬ 
man  into  the  channels  of  natural  history,  and  brings  home  a 
finer  game  than  ever  fell  to  shot  or  bullet.  He  too  has  an  eye 
for  the  fox  and  the  rabbit  and  the  migrating  waterfowl,  but  he 
sees  them  with  loving  and  not  with  murderous  eyes. 

So  far  as  seeing  things  is  an  art,  it  is  the  art  of  keeping  your 
eyes  and  ears  open.  The  art  of  nature  is  all  in  the  direction  of 
concealment.  The  birds,  the  animals,  all  the  wild  creatures,  for 
the  most  part  try  to  elude  your  observation.  The  art  of  the  bird 
is  to  hide  her  nest;  the  art  of  the  game  you  are  in  quest  of  is 
to  make  itself  invisible.  The  flower  seeks  to  attract  the  bee  and 
the  moth  by  its  color  and  perfume,  because  they  are  of  service 
to  it;  but  I  presume  it  would  hide  from  the  excursionists  and 
the  picnickers  if  it  could,  because  they  extirpate  it.  Power  of 
attention  and  a  mind  sensitive  to  outward  objects,  in  these  lies 
the  secret  of  seeing  things.  Can  you  bring  all  your  faculties  to 
the  front,  like  a  house  with  many  faces  at  the  doors  and  win¬ 
dows;  or  do  you  live  retired  within  yourself,  shut  up  in  your 
own  meditations  ?  The  thinker  puts  all  the  powers  of  his  mind 
in  reflection:  the  observer  puts  all  the  powers  of  his  mind  in 
perception;  every  faculty  is  directed  outward;  the  whole  mind 
sees  through  the  eye  and  hears  through  the  ear.  He  has  an  ob¬ 
jective  turn  of  mind  as  opposed  to  a  subjective.  A  person  with 
the  latter  turn  of  mind  sees  little.  If  you  are  occupied  with 
your  own  thoughts  you  may  go  through  a  museum  of  curiosities 
and  observe  nothing. 

Of  course  one’s  power  of  observation  may  be  cultivated  as 
well  as  anything  else.  The  sense  of  seeing  and  hearing  may  be 
quickened  and  trained  as  well  as  the  sense  of  touch.  Blind  per¬ 
sons  come  to  be  marvelously  acute  in  their  powers  of  touch. 
Their  feet  find  the  path  and  keep  it.  They  come  to  know  the 
lay  of  the  land  through  this  sense,  and  recognize  the  roads  and 
surfaces  they  have  once  traveled  over.  Helen  Keller  reads  your 

11—49 


770 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


speech  by  putting  her  hand  upon  your  lips,  and  is  also  thrilled 
by  the  music  of  an  instrument  by  means  of  her  touch.  The 
perceptions  of  school  children  should  be  trained  as  well  as  their 
powers  of  reflection  and  memory.  A  teacher  in  Connecticut, 
Miss  Aiken, —  whose  work  on  mind  training  I  commend  to  all 
teachers, — has  hit  upon  a  simple  and  ingenious  method  of  doing 
this.  She  has  a  revolving  blackboard  upon  which  she  writes  va¬ 
rious  figures,  numbers,  words,  sentences,  which  she  exposes  to 
the  view  of  the  class  for  one  or  two  or  three  seconds  as  the  case 
may  be,  and  then  asks  them  to  copy  or  repeat  what  was  written. 
In  time  they  become  astonishingly  quick,  especially  the  girls, 
and  can  take  in  a  multitude  of  things  at  a  glance.  Detectives,  I 
am  told,  are  trained  after  a  similar  method;  a  man  is  led  quickly 
by  a  show  window,  for  instance,  and  asked  to  name  and  describe 
the  objects  he  saw  there.  Life  itself  is  of  course  more  or  less 
a  school  of  this  kind,  but  the  power  of  concentrated  attention  in 
most  persons  needs  stimulating.  Here  comes  in  the  benefit  of 
manual  training  schools.  To  do  a  thing,  to  make  something,  the 
powers  of  the  mind  must  be  focused.  A  boy  in  building  a  boat 
will  get  something  that  all  the  books  in  the  world  cannot  give 
him.  The  concrete,  the  definite,  the  discipline  of  real  things,  the 
educational  values  that  lie  here,  are  not  enough  appreciated. 

The  book  of  nature  is  like  a  page  written  over  or  printed 
upon  with  different  sized  characters  and  in  many  different  lan¬ 
guages,  interlined  and  cross-lined,  and  with  a  great  variety  of 
marginal  notes  and  references.  There  is  coarse  print  and  fine 
print;  there  are  obscure  signs  and  hieroglyphics.  We  all  read 
the  large  type  more  or  less  appreciatively,  but  only  the  students 
and  lovers  of  nature  read  the  fine  lines  and  the  footnotes.  It  is 
a  book  which  he  reads  best  who  goes  most  slowly  or  even  tar¬ 
ries  long  by  the  way.  He  who  runs  may  read  some  things.  We 
may  take  in  the  general  features  of  the  sky,  plain,  and  river 
from  the  express  train,  but  only  the  pedestrian,  the  saunterer, 
with  eyes  in  his  head  and  love  in  his  heart,  turns  every  leaf  and 
peruses  every  line.  One  man  sees  only  the  migrating  water- 
fowls  and  the  larger  birds  of  the  air;  another  sees  the  passing 
kinglets  and  hurrying  warblers  as  well.  For  my  part,  my  de¬ 
light  is  to  linger  long  over  each  page  of  this  marvelous  record, 
and  to  dwell  fondly  upon  its  most  obscure  text. 

I  take  pleasure  in  noting  the  minute  things  about  me.  I  am 
interested  even  in  the  ways  of  the  wild  bees  and  in  all  the  little 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


771 


dramas  and  tragedies  that  occur  in  field  and  wood.  One  June 
day,  in  my  walk,  as  I  crossed  a  rather  dry,  high-lying  field,  my 
attention  was  attracted  by  small  mounds  of  fresh  earth  all  over 
the  ground,  scarcely  more  than  a  handful  in  each.  On  looking 
closely  I  saw  that  in  the  middle  of  each  mound  there  was  a  hole 
not  quite  so  large  as  a  lead  pencil.  Now,  I  had  never  observed 
these  mounds  before,  and  my  curiosity  was  aroused.  (( Here  is 
some  fine  print, w  I  said,  <(  that  I  have  overlooked.  ®  So  I  set  to 
work  to  try  to  read  it;  I  waited  for  a  sign  of  life.  Presently  I 
saw  here  and  there  a  bee  hovering  about  over  the  mounds.  It 
looked  like  the  honeybee,  only  less  pronounced  in  color  and 
manner.  One  of  them  alighted  on  one  of  the  mounds  near  me, 
and  was  about  to  disappear  in  the  hole  in  the  centre  when  I 
caught  it  in  my  hand.  Though  it  stung  me,  I  retained  it  and 
looked  it  over,  and  in  the  process  was  stung  several  times;  but 
the  pain  was  slight.  I  saw  it  was  one  of  our  native  wild  bees, 
cousin  to  the  leaf  rollers,  that  build  their  nests  under  stones  and 
in  decayed  fence-rails.  (In  Packard  I  found  it  described  under 
the  name  of  Andrena.)  Then  I  inserted  a  small  weed-stalk  into 
one  of  the  holes,  and,  with  a  trowel  I  carried,  proceeded  to  dig 
out  the  nest.  The  hole  was  about  a  foot  deep;  at  the  bottom  of 
it  I  found  a  little  semi-transparent,  membranous  sac  or  cell,  a 
little  larger  than  that  of  the  honeybee;  in  this  sac  was  a  little 
pellet  of  yellow  pollen  —  a  loaf  of  bread  for  the  young  grub 
when  the  egg  should  have  hatched.  I  explored  other  nests  and 
found  them  all  the  same.  This  discovery  was  not  a  great  addi¬ 
tion  to  my  sum  of  natural  knowledge,  but  it  was  something. 
Now  when  I  see  the  signs  in  a  field  I  know  what  they  mean; 
they  indicate  the  tiny  earthen  cradles  of  Andrena. 

Near  by  I  chanced  to  spy  a  large  hole  in  the  turf,  with  no 
mound  of  soil  about  it.  I  could  put  the  end  of  my  little  finger 
into  it.  I  peered  down,  and  saw  the  gleam  of  two  small,  bead¬ 
like  eyes.  I  knew  it  to  be  the  den  of  the  wolf  spider.  Was  she 
waiting  for  some  blundering  insect  to  tumble  in  ?  I  say  she,  be¬ 
cause  the  real  ogre  among  the  spiders  is  the  female.  The  male 
is  small  and  of  little  consequence.  A  few  days  later  I  paused  by 
this  den  again  and  saw  the  members  of  the  ogress  scattered 
about  her  own  door.  Had  some  insect  Jack  the  Giant-killer  been 
there,  or  had  a  still  more  formidable  ogress,  the  sand  hornet, 
dragged  her  forth  and  carried  away  her  limbless  body  to  her  den 
in  the  bank  ?  What  the  wolf  spider  does  with  the  earth  it  exca< 


772 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


vates  in  making  its  den  is  a  mystery.  There  is  no  sign  of  it 
anywhere  about.  Does  it  force  its  way  down  by  pushing  the  soil 
to  one  side  and  packing  it  there  firmly  ?  The  entrance  to  the 
hole  usually  has  a  slight  rim  or  hem  to  keep  the  edge  from 
crumbling  in. 

As  it  happened,  I  chanced  upon  another  interesting  footnote 
that  very  day.  I  was  on  my  way  to  a  muck  swamp  in  the 
woods  to  see  if  the  showy  lady’s  slipper  was  in  bloom.  Just  on 
the  margin  of  the  swamp,  in  the  deep  shade  of  the  hemlocks, 
my  eye  took  note  of  some  small,  unshapely  creature  crawling 
hurriedly  over  the  ground.  I  stooped  down,  and  saw  it  was 
a  large  species  of  the  moth  just  out  of  its  case,  and  in  a  great 
hurry  to  find  a  suitable  place  in  which  to  hang  itself  up  and 
give  its  wings  a  chance  to  unfold  before  the  air  dried  them.  I 
thrust  a  small  twig  in  its  way,  which  it  instantly  seized  upon. 
I  lifted  it  gently,  carried  it  to  drier  ground,  and  fixed  the  stick 
in  the  fork  of  a  tree,  so  that  the  moth  hung  free  a  few  feet 
from  the  ground.  Its  body  was  distended  nearly  to  the  size  of 
one’s  little  finger,  surmounted  by  wings  that  were  so  crumpled 
and  stubby  that  they  seemed  quite  rudimentary.  The  creature 
evidently  knew  what  it  wanted,  and  knew  the  importance  of 
haste.  Instantly  these  rude,  stubby  wings  began  to  grow.  It 
was  a  slow  process,  but  one  could  see  the  change  from  minute 
to  minute.  As  the  wings  expanded  the  body  contracted.  By 
some  kind  of  pumping  arrangement  air  was  being  forced  from  a 
reservoir  in  the  one  into  the  tubes  of  the  other.  The  wings 
were  not  really  growing,  as  they  at  first  seemed  to  be,  but  they 
were  unfolding  and  expanding  under  this  pneumatic  pressure 
from  the  body.  In  the  course  of  about  half  an  hour  the  process 
was  completed,  and  the  winged  creature  hung  there  in  all  its 
full-fledged  beauty.  Its  color  was  checked  black  and  white  like 
a  loon’s  back,  but  its  name  I  know  not.  My  chief  interest  in  it, 
aside  from  the  interest  we  feel  in  any  new  form  of  life,  arose 
from  the  creature’s  extreme  anxiety  to  reach  a  perch  where  it 
could  unfold  its  wings.  A  little  delay  would  doubtless  have  been 
fatal  to  it.  I  wonder  how  many  human  geniuses  are  hatched 
whose  wings  are  blighted  by  some  accident  or  untoward  circum¬ 
stance  ?  Or  do  the  wings  of  genius  always  unfold,  no  matter 
what  the  environment  may  be  ? 

One  seldom  takes  a  walk  without  encountering  some  of  this 
fine  print  on  nature’s  page.  Now  it  is  a  little  yellowish-white 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


773 


moth  that  spreads  itself  upon  the  middle  of  a  leaf  and  imitates 
the  droppings  of  birds;  or  it  is  the  young  cicadas  working  up 
out  of  the  ground,  and  in  the  damp,  cool  places  building  little 
chimneys  or  tubes  above  the  surface  to  get  more  warmth  and 
hasten  their  development;  or  it  is  a  wood  newt  gorging  a  tree 
cricket,  or  a  little  snake  gorging  the  newt,  or  a  bird  song  with 
some  striking  peculiarity, —  a  strange  defect  or  a  rare  excellence. 
Now  it  is  a  shrike  impaling  his  victim,  or  blue  jays  mocking  and 
teasing  a  little  hawk  and  dropping  quickly  into  the  branches  to 
avoid  his  angry  blows,  or  a  robin  hustling  a  cuckoo  out  of  the 
tree  where  her  nest  is,  or  a  vireo  driving  away  a  cowbird,  or 
the  partridge  blustering  about  your  feet  till  her  young  are  hid¬ 
den.  One  October  morning  I  was  walking  along  the  road  on 
the  edge  of  the  woods,  when  I  came  into  a  gentle  shower  of  but¬ 
ternuts;  one  of  them  struck  my  hat  brim.  I  paused  and  looked 
about  me;  here  one  fell,  there  another,  yonder  a  third.  There 
was  no  wind  blowing,  and  I  wondered  what  was  loosening  the 
butternuts.  Turning  my  attention  to  the  top  of  the  tree  I  soon 
saw  the  explanation :  a  red  squirrel  was  at  work  gathering  his 
harvest.  He  would  seize  a  nut,  give  it  a  little  twist,  when  down  it 
would  come;  then  he  would  dart  to  another  and  another.  Further 
along  I  found  where  he  had  covered  the  ground  with  chestnut 
burs;  he  could  not  wait  for  the  frost  and  the  winds;  he  knew  the 
burs  would  dry  and  open  upon  the  ground,  and  he  knew  the  bitter 
covering  of  the  butternuts  would  soon  fall  away  from  the  nuts. 

There  are  three  things  that  doubtless  happen  near  me  each 
season  that  I  have  never  yet  seen,  —  the  toad  casting  its  skin,  the 
snake  swallowing  its  young,  and  the  larvae  of  the  moth  and 
butterfly  constructing  their  abodes.  It  is  a  moot  question  whether 
or  not  the  snake  does  swallow  its  young,  but  if  there  is  no  other 
good  reason  for  it,  may  they  not  retreat  into  their  mother’s 
stomach  to  feed  ?  How  else  are  they  to  be  nourished  ?  That  the 
moth  larvae  can  weave  its  own  cocoon  and  attach  it  to  a  twig 
seems  more  incredible.  Yesterday  in  my  walk  I  found  a  firm, 
silver-gray  cocoon,  about  two  inches  long  and  shaped  like  an 
Egyptian  mummy  (probably  Cynthia),  suspended  from  a  branch 
of  a  bush  by  a  narrow,  stout  ribbon  twice  as  long  as  itself.  The 
fastening  was  woven  around  the  limb,  upon  which  it  turned  as 
if  it  grew  there.  I  would  have  given  something  to  have  seen 
the  creature  perform  this  feat,  and  then  incase  itself  so  snugly 
in  the  silken  shroud  at  the  end  of  this  tether.  By  swinging  free 


774 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


its  firm,  compact  case  was  in  no  danger  from  woodpeckers,  as  it 
might  have  been  if  resting  directly  upon  a  branch  or  tree  trunk. 
Near  by  was  the  cocoon  of  another  species  (Cecropia)  that  was 
fastened  directly  to  the  limb;  but  this  was  vague,  loose,  and  much 
more  involved  and  net-like.  I  have  seen  the  downy  woodpecker 
assaulting  one  of  these  cocoons,  but  its  yielding  surface  and  webby 
interior  seemed  to  puzzle  and  baffle  him.  I  am  interested  even 
in  the  way  each  climbing  plant  or  vine  goes  up  the  pole,  whether 
from  right  to  left,  or  from  left  to  right,  —  that  is,  with  the  hands 
of  a  clock  or  against  them, —  whether  it  is  under  the  law  of  the 
great  cyclonic  storms  of  the  northern  hemisphere,  which  all  move 
against  the  hands  of  a  clock,  or  from  west  to  east,  or  in  the 
contrary  direction,  like  the  cyclones  in  the  southern  hemisphere. 
I  take  pleasure  in  noting  every  little  dancing  whirlwind  of  a 
summer  day  that  catches  up  the  dust  or  the  leaves  before  me, 
and  every  little  funnel-shaped  whirlpool  in  the  swollen  stream  or 
river,  whether  or  not  they  spin  from  right  to  left  or  the  reverse. 
If  I  were  in  the  southern  hemisphere  I  am  sure  I  should  note 
whether  these  things  were  under  the  law  of  its  cyclones  in  this 
respect  or  under  the  law  of  ours.  As  a  rule,  our  twining  plants 
and  toy  whirlwinds  copy  our  revolving  storms  and  go  against  the 
hands  of  the  clock.  But  there  are  exceptions.  While  the  bean, 
the  bittersweet,  the  morning  glory,  and  others  go  up  from  left 
to  right,  the  hop,  the  wild  buckwheat,  and  some  others  go  up 
from  right  to  left.  Most  of  our  forest  trees  show  a  tendency  to 
wind  one  way  or  the  other,  the  hard  woods  going  in  one  direc¬ 
tion,  and  the  hemlocks  and  pines  and  cedars  and  butternuts  in 
another.  In  different  localities,  or  on  different  geological  forma¬ 
tions,  I  find  these  directions  reversed.  I  recall  one  instance  in 
the  case  of  a  hemlock  six  or  seven  inches  in  diameter,  where 
this  tendency  to  twist  had  come  out  of  the  grain,  as  it  were,  and 
shaped  the  outward  form  of  the  tree,  causing  it  to  make,  in  an 
ascent  of  about  thirty  feet,  one  complete  revolution  about  a  larger 
tree  close  to  which  it  grew.  On  a  smaller  scale  I  have  seen  the 
same  thing  in  a  pine. 

Persons  lost  in  the  woods  or  on  the  plains,  or  traveling  at 
night,  tend,  I  believe,  toward  the  left.  The  movements  of  men 
and  women,  it  is  said,  differ  in  this  respect,  one  sex  turning  to 
the  right  and  the  other  to  the  left. 

I  had  lived  in  the  world  more  than  fifty  years  before  I  noticed 
a  peculiarity  about  the  rays  of  light  one  often  sees  diverging 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


775 


from  an  opening,  or  a  series  of  openings,  in  the  clouds,  namely, 
that  they  are  like  spokes  in  a  wheel,  the  hub  or  centre  of  which 
appears  to  be  just  there  in  the  vapory  masses,  instead  of  being, 
as  is  really  the  case,  nearly  ninety-three  millions  of  miles  beyond. 
The  beams  of  light  that  come  through  cracks  or  chinks  in  a  wall 
do  not  converge  in  this  way,  but  to  the  eye  run  parallel  to  one 
another.  There  is  another  fact:  this  fan-shaped  display  of  con¬ 
verging  rays  is  always  immediately  in  front  of  the  observer;  that 
is,  exactly  between  him  and  the  sun,  so  that  the  central  spoke  or 
shaft  in  his  front  is  always  perpendicular.  You  cannot  see  this 
fan  to  the  right  or  left  of  the  sun,  but  only  between  you  and  it. 
Hence,  as  in  the  case  of  the  rainbow,  no  two  persons  see  exactly 
the  same  rays. 

The  eye  sees  what  it  has  the  means  of  seeing,  and  its  means 
of  seeing  are  in  proportion  to  the  love  and  desire  behind  it. 
The  eye  is  informed  and  sharpened  by  the  thought.  My  boy 
sees  ducks  on  the  river  where  and  when  I  cannot,  because  at  cer¬ 
tain  seasons  he  thinks  ducks  and  dreams  ducks.  One  season  my 
neighbor  asked  me  if  the  bees  had  injured  my  grapes.  I  said, 
“No;  the  bees  never  injure  my  grapes.” 

“  They  do  mine, ”  he  replied ;  <(  they  puncture  the  skin  for  the 
juice,  and  at  times  the  clusters  are  covered  with  them.” 

“No,”  I  said,  “it  is  not  the  bees  that  puncture  the  skin;  it  is 
the  birds.” 

«  What  birds  ?  » 

“  The  orioles.  ” 

“But  I  haven’t  seen  any  orioles,”  he  rejoined. 

“We  have,”  I  continued,  “because  at  this  season  we  think  ori¬ 
oles;  we  have  learned  by  experience  how  destructive  these  birds 
are  in  the  vineyard,  and  we  are  on  the  lookout  for  them;  our 
eyes  and  ears  are  ready  for  them.” 

If  we  think  birds,  we  shall  see  birds  wherever  we  go;  if  we 
think  arrowheads,  as  Thoreau  did,  we  shall  pick  up  arrowheads 
in  every  field.  Some  people  have  an  eye  for  four-leaved  clovers; 
they  see  them  as  they  walk  hastily  over  the  turf,  for  they  already 
have  them  in  their  eyes.  I  once  took  a  walk  with  the  late  Pro¬ 
fessor  Eaton  of  Yale.  He  was  just  then  specially  interested  in 
the  mosses,  and  he  found  them,  all  kinds,  everywhere.  I  can 
see  him  yet,  every  few  minutes  upon  his  knees,  adjusting  his 
eyeglasses  before  some  rare  specimen.  The  beauty  he  found  in 
them,  and  pointed  out  to  me,  kindled  my  enthusiasm  also.  I 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


776 

once  spent  a  summer  day  at  the  mountain  home  of  a  well-known 
literary  woman  and  editor.  She  lamented  the  absence  of  birds 
about  her  house.  I  named  a  half-dozen  or  more  I  had  heard  or 
seen  in  her  trees  within  an  hour, — the  indigo  bird,  the  purple 
finch,  the  yellowbird,  the  veery  thrush,  the  red-eyed  vireo,  the 
song  sparrow,  etc. 

(<  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  have  seen  or  heard  all  these  birds 
while  sitting  here  on  my  porch  ? ”  s^ie  inquired. 

<(  I  really  have, ”  I  said. 

<(  I  do  not  see  them  or  hear  them,”  she  replied,  <(and  yet  I 
want  to  very  much.” 

(<No, ”  said  I;  <(you  only  want  to  want  to  see  and  hear  them.” 

You  must  have  the  bird  in  your  heart  before  you  can  find  it 
in  the  bush. 

I  was  sitting  in  front  of  a  farmhouse  one  day,  in  company 

with  the  local  Nimrod.  In  a  maple  tree  in  front  of  us  I  saw 

the  great-crested  flycatcher.  I  called  the  hunter’s  attention  to 
it,  and  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  seen  the  bird  before.  No,  he 
had  not;  it  was  a  new  bird  to  him.  But  he  had  probably  seen 

it  scores  of  times  —  seen  it  without  regarding  it.  It  was  not 

the  game  he  was  in  quest  of,  and  his  eye  heeded  it  not. 

Human  and  artificial  sounds  and  objects  thrust  themselves 
upon  us;  they  are  within  our  sphere,  so  to  speak:  but  the  life 
of  nature  we  must  meet  half-way;  it  is  shy,  withdrawn,  and 
blends  itself  with  a  vast  neutral  background.  We  must  be  initi¬ 
ated;  it  is  an  order  the  secrets  of  which  are  well  guarded. 

Complete.  From  the  Century  Magazine,  December,  1899. 

By  Permission. 


777 


SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON 

(1821--1890) 

ichard  Francis  Burton,  explorer  and  Orientalist,  made  him¬ 
self  a  double  reputation,  first  by  his  daring  explorations  of 
the  remotest  regions  of  Africa,  Arabia,  South  America,  and 
Iceland,  and  again  by  his  books  of  travel  and  his  celebrated  transla¬ 
tion  of  the  (< Arabian  Nights.  ”  He  wrote  (<some  thirty  volumes”  of  trav¬ 
els,  into  which  as  episodes  he  frequently  interjects  admirable  essays 
on  the  life  and  habits  of  the  peoples  among  whom  he  traveled.  He 
was  born,  according  to  the  weight  of  standard  authority,  in  Hertford¬ 
shire,  England,  March  19th,  1821;  though  it  is  proper  to  mention  that 
in  <(  Cabinets  of  Irish  Literature,”  in  which  extracts  from  his  books  ap¬ 
pear,  his  birthplace  is  given  as<(Tuam,  County  Galway.”  After  serv¬ 
ing  in  the  East  Indian  army,  he  began  his  career  as  an  explorer  in 

1853,  by  making  in  disguise  a  pilgrimage  to  Medina  and  Mecca.  In 

1854,  he  made  with  Speke  a  celebrated  exploration  of  East  Africa. 
In  his  later  travels  he  was  accompanied  by  Lady  Burton,  a  woman  of 
remarkable  intellect,  who,  after  his  death  on  October  20th,  1890,  took 
the  responsibility  of  burning  his  <(  Scented  Garden, ”  a  manuscript  col¬ 
lection  of  Arabic  stories  translated  literally.  She  also  edited  his 
<(  Arabian  Nights,”  with  a  view  to  make  its  circulation  possible  in 
countries  where  Oriental  standards  of  literature  and  morals  are  not 
generally  accepted. 


ROMANTIC  LOVE  AND  ARAB  POETRY 

The  author  of  certain  <(  Lectures  on  Poetry,  Addressed  to  Work¬ 
ing  Men,”  asserts  that  passion  became  love  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  Christianity,  and  that  the  idea  of  a  virgin  mother 
spread  over  the  sex  a  sanctity  unknown  to  the  poetry  or  the 
philosophy  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Passing  over  the  objections  of 
deified  Eros  and  immortal  Psyche  and  of  the  virgin  mother, — 
symbol  of  moral  purity, — being  common  to  all  old  and  material 
faiths,  I  believe  that  all  the  noble  tribes  of  savages  display  the 
principle.  Thus  we  might  expect  to  find,  wherever  the  fancy, 


778  SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON 

the  imagination,  and  the  ideality  are  strong,  some  traces  of  a 
sentiment  innate  in  the  human  organization.  It  exists,  says  Mr. 
Catlin,  amongst  the  North  American  Indians,  and  even  the  Gal- 
las  and  the  Somal  of  Africa  are  not  wholly  destitute  of  it.  But 
when  the  barbarian  becomes  a  semibarbarian,  as  are  the  most 
polished  Orientals,  or  as  were  the  classical  authors  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  then  women  fall  from  their  proper  place  in  society,  be¬ 
come  mere  articles  of  luxury,  and  sink  into  the  lowest  moral 
condition.  In  the  next  state,  <(  civilization, they  rise  again  to  be 
<(  highly  accomplished, >}  and  not  a  little  frivolous. 

Were  it  not  evident  that  the  spiritualizing  of  sexuality  by 
imagination  is  universal  amongst  the  highest  orders  of  mankind, 
I  should  attribute  the  origin  of  love  to  the  influence  of  the 
Arab’s  poetry  and  chivalry  upon  European  ideas  rather  than  to 
mediaeval  Christianity. 

In  pastoral  life  tribes  often  meet  for  a  time,  live  together 
whilst  pasturage  lasts,  and  then  separate  perhaps  for  a  generation. 
Under  such  circumstances  youths,  who  hold  with  the  Italian  that — 

<(  Perduto  e  tutto  il  tempo 
Che  in  amor  non  si  spendeP 

will  lose  heart  to  maidens,  whom  possibly,  by  the  laws  of  the 
clan,  they  may  not  marry,  and  the  light  o’  love  will  fly  her  home. 
The  fugitives  must  brave  every  danger,  for  revenge,  at  all  times 
the  Bedouin’s  idol,  now  becomes  the  lodestar  of  his  existence. 
But  the  Arab  lover  will  dare  all  consequences.  <(  Men  have  died 
and  the  worms  have  eaten  them,  but  not  for  love,^  may  be  true 
in  the  West;  it  is  false  in  the  East.  This  is  attested  in  every 
tale  where  love,  and  not  ambition,  is  the  groundwork  of  the 
narrative.  And  nothing  can  be  more  tender,  more  pathetic,  than 
the  use  made  of  these  separations  and  the  long  absences  by  the 
old  Arab  poets.  Whoever  peruses  the  (<  Suspended  Poem of 
Lebid  will  find  thoughts  at  once  so  plaintive  and  so  noble  that 
even  Doctor  Carlyle’s  learned  verse  cannot  wholly  deface  their 
charm.  The  author  returns  from  afar.  He  looks  upon  the  traces 
of  hearth  and  home  still  furrowing  the  desert  ground.  In  bitter¬ 
ness  of  spirit  he  checks  himself  from  calling  aloud  upon  his 
lovers  and  his  friends.  He  melts  at  the  remembrance  of  their 
departure,  and  long  indulges  in  the  absorbing  theme.  Then  he 
strengthens  himself  by  the  thought  of  Nawara’s  inconstancy,  how 


SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON 


779 


she  left  him  and  never  thought  of  him  again.  He  impatiently 
dwells  upon  the  charms  of  the  places  which  detain  her,  advo¬ 
cates  flight  from  the  changing  lover  and  the  false  friend,  and,  in 
the  exultation  with  which  he  feels  his  swift  dromedary  start  under 
him  upon  her  rapid  course,  he  seems  to  find  some  consolation  for 
woman’s  perfidy  and  forgetfulness.  Yet  he  cannot  abandon  Na- 
wara’s  name  or  memory.  Again  he  dwells  with  yearning  upon 
scenes  of  past  felicity,  and  he  boasts  of  his  prowess, —  a  fresh  re¬ 
proach  to  her, —  of  his  gentle  birth  and  of  his  hospitality.  He 
ends  with  an  encomium  upon  his  clan,  to  which  he  attributes,  as 
a  noble  Arab  should,  all  the  virtues  of  man.  This  is  Goldsmith’s 
deserted  village  in  El  Hejaz.  But  the  Arab,  with  equal  sim¬ 
plicity  and  pathos,  has  a  fire,  a  force  of  language,  and  a  depth 
of  feeling,  which  the  Irishman,  admirable  as  his  verse  is,  could 
never  rival. 

As  the  author  of  the  Peninsular  War  well  remarks,  women  in 
troublesome  times,  throwing  off  their  accustomed  feebleness  and 
frivolity,  become  helpmates  meet  for  man.  The  same  is  true  of 
pastoral  life.  Here  between  the  extremes  of  fierceness  and  sensi¬ 
bility,  the  weaker  sex,  remedying  its  great  want,  power,  raises 
itself  by  courage,  physical  as  well  as  moral.  In  the  early  days 
of  El  Islam,  if  history  be  credible,  Arabia  had  a  race  of  hero¬ 
ines.  Within  the  last  century,  Ghaliyah,  the  wife  of  a  Wahhabi 
chief,  opposed  Mohammed  Ali  himself  in  many  a  bloody  field. 
A  few  years  ago,  when  Ibn  Asm,  popularly  called  Ibn  Rumi, 
chief  of  the  Zubayd  clan  about  Rabigh,  was  treacherously  slain  by 
the  Turkish  general,  Kurdi  Usman,  his  sister,  a  fair  young  girl, 
determined  to  revenge  him.  She  fixed  upon  the  (<  Arafat-day  * 
of  pilgrimage  for  the  accomplishment  of  her  designs,  disguised 
herself  in  male  attire,  drew  her  handkerchief  in  the  form  of  ®lisam)> 
over  the  lower  part  of  her  face,  and  with  lighted  match  awaited 
her  enemy.  The  Turk,  however,  was  not  present,  and  the  girl 
was  arrested,  to  win  for  herself  a  local  reputation  equal  to  the 
maid  of  Salamanca.  Thus  it  is  that  the  Arab  has  learned  to 
swear  that  great  oath  <(by  the  honor  of  my  women. 

The  Bedouins  are  not  without  a  certain  Platonic  affection, 
which  they  call  (<  Hawa  (or  Ishk)  uzri,” — pardonable  love.  They 
draw  the  fine  line  between  amant  and  amoreux :  this  is  derided 
by  the  townspeople,  little  suspecting  how  much  such  a  custom 
says  in  favor  of  the  wild  men.  In  the  cities,  however,  it  could 
not  prevail.  Arabs,  like  other  Orientals,  hold  that  in  such  mat- 


780 


SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON 


ters  man  is  saved,  not  by  faith,  but  by  want  of  faith.  They 
have  also  a  saying  not  unlike  ours  — 

(<She  partly  is  to  blame  who  has  been  tried, 

He  comes  too  near  who  comes  to  be  denied.  ” 

The  evil  of  this  system  is  that  they,  like  certain  southerners, 
pensano  sempre  al  male ,  always  suspect,  which  may  be  worldly 
wise,  and  also  always  show  their  suspicions,  which  is  assuredly 
foolish.  For  thus  they  demoralize  their  women,  who  might  be 
kept  in  the  way  of  right  by  self-respect  and  a  sense  of  duty. 
To  raise  our  fellow-creatures  we  have  only  to  show  that  we  think 
better  of  them  than  they  deserve  —  disapprobation  and  suspicion 
draw  forth  the  worst  traits  of  character  and  conduct. 

From  ancient  periods  of  the  Arab’s  history  we  find  him  prac¬ 
ticing  (<  knight-errantry, ”  the  wildest  form  of  chivalry.  <<(The 
Songs  of  Antar, >  ”  says  the  author  of  <(  The  Crescent  and  the 
Cross, ”  <(  show  little  of  the  true  chivalric  spirit.  *  What  thinks 
the  reader  of  sentiments  like  these?  <(  This  valiant  man,”  re¬ 
marks  Antar  (who  was  <(ever  interested  for  the  weaker  sex”), 
<(hath  defended  the  honor  of  women.”  We  read  in  another 
place,  (<  Mercy,  my  lord,  is  the  noblest  quality  of  the  noble.” 
Again,  (<  It  is  the  most  ignominious  of  deeds  to  take  freeborn 
women  prisoners.  ”  <(  Bear  not  malice,  O  Shibub !  ”  quoth  the 

hero,  <(  for  of  malice  good  never  came.  ”  Is  there  no  true  great¬ 
ness  in  this  sentiment  ?  — <(  Birth  is  the  boast  of  the  faineant;  no¬ 
ble  is  the  youth  who  beareth  every  ill,  who  clotheth  himself  in 
mail  during  the  noontide  heat,  and  who  wandereth  through  the 
outer  darkness  of  night.  ”  And  why  does  the  <(  knight  of  knights  ” 
love  Ibla  ?  Because  <(  she  is  blooming  as  the  sun  at  dawn,  with 
hair  black  as  the  midnight  shades,  with  Paradise  in  her  eye,  her 
bosom  an  enchantment,  and  a  form  waving  like  the  tamarisk 
when  the  soft  winds  blow  from  the  hills  of  Nejd  ?  ”  Yes,  but 
his  chest  expands  also  with  the  thoughts  of  her  (<  faith,  purity, 
and  affection,”  —  it  is  her  moral  as  well  as  her  material  excel¬ 
lence  that  makes  her  the  hero’s  “hope  and  hearing  and  sight.” 
Briefly,  in  Antar  I  discern 

® -  A  love  exalted  high 

By  all  the  glow  of  chivalry,” 

and  I  lament  to  see  so  many  intelligent  travelers  misjudging 
the  Arab  after  a  superficial  experience  of  a  few  debased  Syrians 


SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON  781 

or  Sinaites.  The  true  children  of  Antar  have  not  <(  ceased  to  be 
gentlemen.  * 

In  the  days  of  ignorance,  it  was  the  custom  of  Bedouins,  when 
tormented  by  the  tender  passion  which  seems  to  have  attacked 
them  in  the  form  of  <(  possession,  ”  for  long  years  to  sigh  and 
wail  and  wander,  doing  the  most  truculent  deeds  to  melt  the  ob¬ 
durate  fair.  When  Arabia  islamized,  the  practice  changed  its 
element  for  proselytism.  The  Fourth  Caliph  is  fabled  to  have 
traveled  far,  redressing  the  injured,  punishing  the  injurer,  preach¬ 
ing  to  the  infidel,  and  especially  protecting  women  —  the  chief 
end  and  aim  of  knighthood.  The  Caliph  El  Mutasem  heard  in 
the  assembly  of  his  courtiers  that  a  woman  of  Sayyid  family  had 
been  taken  prisoner  by  a  <(  Greek  barbarian ”  of  Ammoria.  The 
man  on  one  occasion  struck  her,  when  she  cried :  (<  Help  me,  O 
Mutasem!”  and  the  clown  said  derisively:  <(  Wait  till  he  cometh 
upon  his  pied  steed ! ”  The  chivalrous  prince  arose,  sealed  up 
the  wine  cup  which  he  held  in  his  hand,  took  oath  to  do  his 
knightly  devoir,  and  on  the  morrow  started  for  Ammoria  with 
seventy  thousand  men,  each  mounted  on  a  piebald  charger.  Hav¬ 
ing  taken  the  place,  he  entered  it  exclaiming :  <(  Labbayki,  Lab- 
bayki !  —  Here  am  I  at  thy  call. ”  He  struck  off  the  Caitiff’s 
head,  released  the  lady  with  his  own  hands,  ordered  the  cup¬ 
bearer  to  bring  the  sealed  bowl,  and  drank  from  it,  exclaiming: 
(<  Now,  indeed,  wine  is  good ! ”  To  conclude  this  part  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  with  another  far-famed  instance:  When  El  Mutanabbi,  the 
poet,  prophet,  and  warrior  of  Hams  (a.  h.  354),  started  together 
with  his  son  on  their  last  journey,  the  father  proposed  to  seek  a 
place  of  safety  for  the  night.  <(  Art  thou  the  Mutanabbi,”  ex¬ 
claimed  his  slave,  (<  who  wrote  these  lines :  — 

<(  ( I  am  known  to  the  night,  and  the  wild,  and  the  steed, 

To  the  guest,  and  the  sword,  to  the  paper  and  reed }  ?  ” 

The  poet,  in  reply,  lay  down  to  sleep  on  Tigris’s  bank,  in  a 
place  haunted  by  thieves,  and,  disdaining  flight,  lost  his  life  dur¬ 
ing  the  hours  of  darkness. 

It  is  the  existence  of  this  chivalry  among  the  <(  Children  of 
Antar”  which  makes  the  society  of  Bedouins  (<(  damned  saints,” 
perchance,  and  <(honorable  villains”),  so  delightful  to  the  traveler 
who,  like  the  late  Haji  Wali  (Dr.  Wallin),  understands  and  is  un¬ 
derstood  by  them.  Nothing  more  naive  than  his  lamentations  at 
finding  himself  in  the  <(  loathsome  company  of  Persians,”  or  among 


782 


SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON 


Arab  townspeople,  whose  (<  filthy  and  cowardly  minds  yy  he  con¬ 
trasts  with  the  “high  and  chivalrous  spirit  of  the  true  Sons  of 
the  Desert. w  Your  guide  will  protect  you  with  blade  and  spear, 
even  against  his  kindred,  and  he  expects  you  to  do  the  same  for 
him.  You  may  give  a  man  the  lie,  but  you  must  lose  no  time 
in  baring  your  sword.  If,  involved  in  dispute  with  overwhelm¬ 
ing  numbers,  you  address  some  elder,  <(  Dakhilak  ya  Shaykh ! })  — 
(I  am)  thy  protected,  O  Sir, —  and  he  will  espouse  your  quarrel, 
and,  indeed,  with  greater  heat  and  energy  than  if  it  were  his 
own.  But  why  multiply  instances  ? 

The  language  of  love  and  war  and  all  excitement  is  poetry, 
and  here  again  the  Bedouin  excels.  Travelers  complain  that  the 
wild  men  have  ceased  to  sing.  This  is  true  if  “  poet be  limited 
to  a  few  authors  whose  existence  everywhere  depends  upon  the 
accidents  of  patronage  or  political  occurrences.  A  far  stronger 
evidence  of  poetic  feeling  is  afforded  by  the  phraseology  of  the 
Arab,  and  the  highly  imaginative  turn  of  his  commonest  expres¬ 
sions.  Destitute  of  the  poetic  taste,  as  we  define  it,  he  certainly 
is:  as  in  the  Milesian,  wit  and  fancy,  vivacity  and  passion,  are 
too  strong  for  reason  and  judgment,  the  reins  which  guide  Apol¬ 
lo’s  car.  And  although  the  Bedouins  no  longer  boast  a  Lebid  or 
a  Maisunah,  yet  they  are  passionately  fond  of  their  ancient  bards. 
A  man  skillful  in  reading  “  El  Mutanabbi }>  and  the  “  Suspended 
Poems w  would  be  received  by  them  with  the  honors  paid  by  civ¬ 
ilization  to  the  traveling  millionaire.  And  their  elders  have  a 
goodly  store  of  ancient  and  modern  war  songs,  legends,  and  love 
ditties,  which  all  enjoy. 

I  cannot  well  explain  the  effect  of  Arab  poetry  to  one  who 
has  not  visited  the  desert.  Apart  from  the  pomp  of  words,  and 
the  music  of  the  sound,  there  is  a  dreaminess  of  idea  and  a  haze 
thrown  over  the  object,  infinitely  attractive,  but  indescribable. 
Description,  indeed,  would  rob  the  song  of  indistinctness,  its 
essence.  To  borrow  a  simile  from  a  sister  art  : —  the  Arab  poet 
sets  before  the  mental  eye  the  dim  grand  outlines  of  a  picture, — 
which  must  be  filled  up  by  the  reader,  guided  only  by  a  few 
glorious  touches,  powerfully  standing  out,  and  the  sentiment  which 
the  scene  is  intended  to  express; — whereas,  we  Europeans  and 
moderns,  by  stippling  and  minute  touches,  produce  a  miniature 
on  a  large  scale  so  objective  as  to  exhaust  rather  than  to  arouse 
reflection.  As  the  poet  is  a  creator,  the  Arab’s  is  poetry,  the 
European’s  versical  description.  The  language,  (<  like  a  faithful 


SIR  RICHARD  FRANCIS  BURTON 


783 


wife,  following  the  mind  and  giving  birth  to  its  offspring,”  and, 
free  from  that  <(  luggage  of  particles  ”  which  clogs  our  modern 
tongues,  leaves  a  mysterious  vagueness  between  the  relation  of 
word  to  word,  which  materially  assists  the  sentiment,  not  the 
sense,  of  the  poem.  When  the  verbs  and  nouns  have  —  each  one 
—  many  different  significations,  only  the  radical  or  general  idea 
suggests  itself.  Rich  and  varied  synonyms,  illustrating  the  finest 
shades  of  meaning,  are  artfully  used;  now  scattered  to  startle  us 
by  distinctness,  now  to  form  as  it  were  a  star  about  which  dimly 
seen  satellites  revolve.  And,  to  cut  short  a  disquisition  which 
might  be  prolonged  indefinitely,  there  is  in  the  Semitic  dialect  a 
copiousness  of  rhyme  which  leaves  the  poet  almost  unfettered  to 
choose  the  desired  expression.  Hence  it  is  that  a  stranger  speak¬ 
ing  Arabic  becomes  poetical  as  naturally  as  he  would  be  witty 
in  French  and  philosophic  in  German.  Truly  spake  Mohammed 
el  Damiri,  <(  Wisdom  hath  alighted  upon  three  things  —  the  brain 
of  the  Franks,  the  hands  of  the  Chinese,  and  the  tongues  of  the 
Arabs. >} 


784 


ROBERT  BURTON 

(1577-1640) 

s  author  of  <(  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  w  had  no  predecessor 
in  English  literature  and  he  has  found  no  successor.  In  the 
variety  of  his  learning  and  in  the  complete  abandonment  of 
all  restraint  with  which  he  uses  it,  he  is  unlike  any  other  essayist  in 
the  whole  range  of  literature.  Among  the  Ancients,  Athenasus  is 
nearest  to  him  in  ability  to  quote  in  connection  with  any  given  sub¬ 
ject  illustrations  which  no  one  else  would  have  thought  of  in  that 
or  any  other  connection.  This  ability  and  his  own  quaintness  im¬ 
mortalized  Burton.  Hundreds  of  writers,  famous  or  obscure,  whose 
works  are  now  to  be  reached  only  on  the  dustiest  shelves  of  the  great 
libraries,  are  quoted  by  him  as  if  they  were  his  familiar  friends.  It 
is  charged  that  he  supplied  Sterne  with  much  of  the  curious  learning 
which  helped  to  make  <(  Tristram  Shandy w  celebrated,  and  it  might  as 
easily  be  charged  that  other  reputations  for  extensive  scholarship 
more  pretentious  than  that  of  Sterne  would  collapse  if  <(The  Anatomy 
of  Melancholy })  were  drawn  from  under  them.  Now,  however,  when 
handbooks  of  classical  quotations  are  so  abundant  and  cheap,  Burton 
is  thrown  upon  his  own  merits  for  survival,  and  as  there  is  scarcely 
a  bookstore  of  any  pretension  in  England  or  America  without  <(  The 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy  ®  in  stock,  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  he  is 
standing  the  test.  It  is  asserted  that  he  was  led  by  his  own  melan¬ 
choly  disposition  to  undertake  the  analysis  of  melancholy  in  all  its 
physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  aspects.  In  carrying  out  this  pur¬ 
pose  he  touches  on  almost  every  subject  then  imaginable  as  earthly, 
besides  making  frequent  excursions  into  the  region  of  the  celestial 
and  the  infernal. 

He  was  born  in  Leicestershire,  England,  February  8th,  1577.  After 
graduating  at  Oxford,  he  was  elected  <(  student  »  of  Christ  Church  Col¬ 
lege.  He  was  afterwards  vicar  of  St.  Thomas  and  rector  of  Segrave 
under  the  English  Church.  Those  who  know  him  best  as  the  author 
of  (<  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy }>  will  be  most  inclined  to  doubt  his 
success  in  doing  the  work  of  a  parish,  though  no  doubt  he  did  as 
well  as  Rev.  Robert  Herrick,  not  to  mention  Rev.  Dr.  Swift  or  Rev. 
Dr.  Sterne  himself. 


ROBERT  BURTON 


785 


THE  NATURE  OF  SPIRITS,  BAD  ANGELS,  OR  DEVILS 

A  nobleman  in  Germany  was  sent  embassador  to  the  king-  of 
Sweden  (for  his  name,  the  time,  and  such  circumstances,  I 
refer  you  to  Boissardus,  mine  author).  After  he  had  done 
his  business,  he  sailed  to  Livonia,  on  set  purpose  to  see  those 
familiar  spirits,  which  are  there  said  to  be  conversant  with  men, 
and  do  their  drudgery  work.  Amongst  other  matters,  one  of 
them  told  him  where  his  wife  was,  in  what  room,  in  what  clothes, 
what  doing,  and  brought  him  a  ring  from  her,  which  at  his  re¬ 
return,  non  sine  omnium  admiratione,  he  found  to  be  true;  and 
so  believed  that  ever  after,  which  before  he  doubted  of.  Cardan 
(1.  19.  De  Subtil.)  relates  of  his  father,  Facius  Cardan,  that  after 
the  accustomed  solemnities  (An.  1491,  13  August),  he  conjured  up 
seven  devils,  in  Greek  apparel,  about  forty  years  of  age,  some 
ruddy  of  complexion,  and  some  pale,  as  he  thought;  he  asked 
them  many  questions,  and  they  made  ready  answer  that  they 
were  aerial  devils,  that  they  lived  and  died  as  men  did,  save 
that  they  were  far  longer  lived  (seven  hundred  or  eight  hundred 
years) ;  they  did  as  much  excel  men  in  dignity  as  we  do  ju- 
ments,  and  were  as  far  excelled  again  of  those  that  were  above 
them;  our  governors  and  keepers  they  are  moreover,  which  Plato 
in  Critias  delivered  of  old,  and  subordinate  to  one  another,  Ut 
enim  homo  ho  mini,  sic  dcemon  dcemoni  dominatur ;  they  rule  them¬ 
selves  as  well  as  us,  and  the  spirits  of  the  meaner  sort  had  com¬ 
monly  such  offices,  as  we  make  horse  keepers,  neatherds,  and 
the  basest  of  us,  overseers  of  our  cattle;  and  that  we  can  no 
more  apprehend  their  natures  and  functions  than  a  horse  a 
man’s.  They  knew  all  things,  but  might  not  reveal  them  to 
men ;  and  ruled  and  domineered  over  us,  as  we  do  over  our 
horses;  the  best  kings  amongst  us,  and  the  most  generous  spirits, 
were  not  comparable  to  the  basest  of  them.  Sometimes  they 
did  instruct  men,  and  communicate  their  skill,  reward  and  cher¬ 
ish,  and  sometimes,  again,  terrify  and  punish,  to  keep  them  in 
awe,  as  they  thought  fit,  Nihil  magis  cupientes  (saith  Lysius, 
Phis.  Stoicorum)  quam  adorationem  hominum.  The  same  author, 
Cardan,  in  his  <(  Hyperchen,”  out  of  the  doctrine  of  Stoics,  will 
have  some  of  these  Genii  (for  so  he  calls  them)  to  be  desirous 
of  men’s  company,  very  affable  and  familiar  with  them,  as  dogs 
are;  others,  again,  to  abhor  as  serpents,  and  care  not  for  them. 
u—50 


786 


ROBERT  BURTON 


The  same  belike  Tritemius  calls  Ignios  et  sublunares ,  qui  nun- 
quant  demergunt  ad  inferiora ,  aut  vix  ullum  habent  in  terris  com - 
mercium.  (<  Generally  they  far  excel  men  in  worth,  as  a  man  the 
meanest  worm;  though  some  of  them  are  inferior  to  those  of 
their  own  rank  in  worth,  as  the  blackguard  in  a  prince’s  court, 
and  to  men  again,  as  some  degenerate,  base,  rational  creatures 
are  excelled  of  brute  beasts. *  . 

Gregorius  Tholsanus  makes  seven  kinds  of  ethereal  Spirits  or 
Angels,  according  to  the  number  of  the  seven  planets,  Saturnine, 
Jovial,  Martial,  (of  which  Cardan  discourseth  lib.  XX.  De  Subtil.); 
he  calls  them  substantias  primas ,  Olympicos  dcemones  Tritemius , 
qui  prcesunt  Zodiaco ,  etc.,  and  will  have  them  to  be  good  Angels 
above,  Devils  beneath  the  Moon;  their  several  names  and  offices 
he  there  sets  down,  and  which  Dionysius  (Of  Angels)  will  have 
several  spirits  for  several  countries,  men,  offices,  etc.,  which  live 
about  them,  and  as  many  assisting  powers  cause  their  operations, 
will  have  in  a  word,  innumerable,  as  many  of  them  as  there  be 
stars  in  the  skies.  Marcilius  Ficinus  seems  to  second  this  opin¬ 
ion,  out  of  Plato,  or  from  himself,  I  know  not  (still  ruling  their 
inferiors,  as  they  do  those  under  them  again,  all  subordinate,  and 
the  nearest  to  the  earth  rule  us,  whom  we  subdivide  into  good 
and  bad  angels,  call  Gods  or  Devils,  as  they  help  or  hurt  us,  and 
so  adore,  love  or  hate),  but  it  is  most  likely  from  Plato,  for  he 
relying  wholly  on  Socrates,  quern  mori  potius  qtiam  mentiri  voluisse 
scribit ,  whom  he  says  would  rather  die  than  tell  a  falsehood,  out 
of  Socrates’s  authority  alone,  made  nine  kinds  of  them:  which 
opinion  be  like  Socrates  took  from  Pythagoras,  and  he  from  Tris- 
megistus,  he  from  Zoroaster,  x.  God,  2.  Idea,  3.  Intelligences,  4. 
Archangels,  5.  Angels,  6.  Devils,  7.  Heroes,  8.  Principalities,  9. 
Princes,  of  which  some  were  absolutely  good  as  Gods,  some  bad, 
some  indifferent  inter  deos  et  homines,  as  heroes  and  daemons, 
which  ruled  men,  and  were  called  Genii,  or  as  Proclus  and  Jam- 
blichus  will,  the  middle  betwixt  God  and  men.  Principalities  and 
•  Princes,  which  commanded  and  swayed  kings  and  countries;  and 
had  several  places  in  the  Spheres  perhaps,  for  as  every  sphere  is 
higher,  so  hath  it  more  excellent  inhabitants :  which  belike  is 
that  Galileo  and  Kepler  aims  at  in  his  (<  Nuncio  Syderio,”  when 
he  will  have  Saturnine  and  Jovial  inhabitants;  and  which  Tycho 
Brahe  doth  in  some  sort  touch  or  insinuate  in  one  of  his  Epis¬ 
tles:  but  these  things  Zanchius  justly  explodes  (cap.  3.  lib.  4.  P. 
Martyr,  in  4.  Sam.  28). 


ROBERT  BURTON 


787 


So  that  according  to  these  men  the  number  of  ethereal  spirits 
must  needs  be  infinite :  for  if  that  be  true  that  some  of  our 
mathematicians  say,  if  a  stone  could  fall  from  the  starry  heaven, 
or  eighth  sphere,  and  should  pass  every  hour  a  hundred  miles,  it 
would  be  sixty-five  years  or  more  before  it  would  come  to  ground, 
by  reason  of  the  great  distance  of  heaven  from  earth,  which  con¬ 
tains  as  some  say  170,000,800  miles,  besides  those  other  heavens, 
whether  they  be  crystalline  or  watery  which  Maginus  adds,  which 
peradventure  holds  as  much  more, —  how  many  such  spirits  may 
it  contain  ?  And  yet  for  all  this,  Thomas  Albertus  and  most  hold 
that  there  be  far  more  angels  than  devils. 

From  (<The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. » 


OF  DISCONTENTS 


Discontents  and  grievances  are  either  general  or  particular; 
general  are  wars,  plagues,  dearths,  famine,  fires,  inunda¬ 
tions,  unseasonable  weather,  epidemical  diseases  which  afflict 
whole  kingdoms,  territories,  cities:  or  peculiar  to  private  men,  as 
cares,  crosses,  losses,  death  of  friends,  poverty,  want,  sickness, 
orbities,  injuries,  abuses,  etc.  Generally  all  discontent,  homines 
quatimur  fortunes  salo.  No  condition  free,  quisque  suos  patimur 
manes.  Even  in  the  midst  of  our  mirth  and  jollity  there  is  some 
grudging,  some  complaint;  as  he  saith,  our  whole  life  is  a  glucu- 
picron,  a  bitter-sweet  passion,  honey  and  gall  mixed  together;  we 
are  all  miserable  and  discontent,  who  can  deny  it  ?  If  all,  and 
that  it  be  a  common  calamity,  an  inevitable  necessity,  all  dis¬ 
tressed,  then,  as  Cardan  infers,  Who  art  thou  that  hopest  to  go 
free  ?  Why  dost  thou  not  grieve  thou  art  a  mortal  man,  and  not 
governor  of  the  world  ?  Ferre,  quam  sortem  patiuntur  omnes ,  nemo 
recuset.  If  it  be  common  to  all,  why  should  one  man  be  more 
disquieted  than  another  ?  If  thou  alone  wert  distressed,  it  were 
indeed  more  irksome  and  less  to  be  endured;  but  when  the  ca¬ 
lamity  is  common,  comfort  thyself  with  this,  thou  hast  more  fel¬ 
lows,  Solamen  miseris  socios  habuisse  doloris ,  ’tis  not  thy  sole  case, 
and  why  shouldst  thou  be  so  impatient?  Aye,  but  alas!  we  are 
more  miserable  than  others,  what  shall  we  do  ?  Besides  private 
miseries  we  live  in  perpetual  fear  and  danger  of  common  ene¬ 
mies;  we  have  Bellona’s  whips,  and  pitiful  outcries  for  epithala- 
miums;  for  pleasant  music,  that  fearful  noise  of  ordnance,  drums, 


788 


ROBERT  BURTON 


and  warlike  trumpets  still  sounding  in  our  ears;  instead  of  nup¬ 
tial  torches,  we  have  firing  of  towns  and  cities;  for  triumphs, 
lamentations;  for  joy,  tears.  So  it  is,  and  so  it  was,  and  ever 
will  be.  He  that  refuseth  to  see  and  hear,  to  suffer  this,  is  not 
fit  to  live  in  this  world,  and  knows  not  the  common  condition  of 
all  men  to  whom,  so  long  as  they  live,  with  a  reciprocal  course, 
joys  and  sorrows  are  annexed  and  succeed  one  another.  It  is 
inevitable,  it  may  not  be  avoided,  and  why  then  shouldst  thou 
be  so  much  troubled  ?  Grave  nihil  est  homini  quod  fert  necessitas , 
as  Tully  deems  out  of  an  old  poet,  that  which  is  necessary  can¬ 
not  be  grievous.  If  it  be  so,  then  comfort  thyself  with  this  that 
whether  thou  wilt  or  no,  it  must  be  endured;  make  a  virtue  of 
necessity,  and  conform  thyself  to  undergo  it.  Si  longa  estf  levis 
est;  si  gravis  est ,  brevis  est.  If  it  be  long,  ’tis  light;  if  grievous, 
it  cannot  last.  It  will  away,  dies  dolorem  minuit ,  and  if  naught 
else  yet  time  will  wear  it  out;  custom  will  ease  it;  oblivion  is  a 
common  medicine  for  all  losses,  injuries,  griefs,  and  detriments 
whatsoever,  and,  when  they  are  once  past,  this  commodity  comes 
of  infelicity,  it  makes  the  rest  of  our  life  sweeter  unto  us.  Atqne 
hcec  olim  meminisse  jnvabit ,  the  privation  and  want  of  a  thing 
many  times  makes  it  more  pleasant  and  delightsome  than  before 
it  was.  We  must  not  think,  the  happiest  of  us  all,  to  escape 
here  without  some  misfortunes  — 

<(  Usque  adeo  nulla  est  sincera  voluntas, 

Solicitu7?i  aliquid  Icetis  intervenit. w 

Heaven  and  earth  are  much  unlike;  those  heavenly  bodies,  in¬ 
deed,  are  freely  carried  in  their  orbs  without  any  impediment  or 
interruption,  to  continue  their  course  for  innumerable  ages,  and 
make  their  conversions;  but  men  are  urged  with  many  difficul¬ 
ties,  and  have  divers  hindrances,  oppositions,  still  crossing,  inter¬ 
rupting  their  endeavors  and  desires,  and  no  mortal  man  is  free 
from  this  law  of  nature.  We  must  not,  therefore,  hope  to  have 
all  things  answer  our  own  expectation,  to  have  a  continuance  of 
good  success  and  fortunes.  Fortnna  nunquam  perpetuo  est  bona. 
And  as  Minutius  Felix,  the  Roman  consul,  told  that  insulting 
Coriolanus,  drunk  with  his  good  fortunes,  look  not  for  that  suc¬ 
cess  thou  hast  hitherto  had.  It  never  yet  happened  to  any  man 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  nor  ever  will,  to  have  all 
things  according  to  his  desire,  or  to  whom  fortune  was  never 
opposite  and  adverse.  Even  so  it  fell  out  to  him  as  he  foretold. 


ROBERT  BURTON 


789 


And  so  to  others,  even  to  that  happiness  of  Augustus;  though  he 
were  Jupiter’s  almoner,  Pluto’s  treasurer,  Neptune’s  admiral,  it 
could  not  secure  him.  Such  was  Alcibiades’s  fortune,  Narsetes, 
that  great  Gonsalvus,  and  most  famous  men’s,  that,  as  Jovius 
concludes,  it  is  almost  fatal  to  great  princes,  through  their  own 
default  or  otherwise  circumvented  with  envy  and  malice,  to  lose 
their  honors  and  die  contumeliously.  ’Tis  so,  still  hath  been, 
and  ever  will  be,  Nihil  est  ab  omni  parte  beatum , 

<(  Since  no  protection  is  so  absolute, 

That  some  impurity  doth  not  pollute. }> 

From  <(The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. }) 


790 


RICHARD  DE  BURY 

(1281-1345) 

hard  de  Bury’s  <(  Philobiblon, })  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
essays  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  written  in  Latin  in  1344,  and 
was  first  printed  at  Cologne  in  1473  as  <(  Philobiblon,  a  Treat¬ 
ise  on  the  Love  of  Books. w  De  Bury,  who  was  one  of  the  greatest 
English  book  collectors  of  the  Middle  Ages,  bequeathed  his  library  to 
a  company  of  scholars  at  Oxford,  and  thus  became  one  of  the  chief 
founders  of  the  library  of  Durham  College.  He  was  born  at  Bury 
St.  Edmunds  in  1281,  and  took  his  name  from  his  birthplace,  as  his 
patronymic  was  <(  Aungerville.”  After  studying  at  Oxford  he  became 
a  Benedictine  monk,  and,  after  being  consecrated  Bishop  of  Durham, 
served  as  chancellor  of  England.  He  died  at  Auckland,  England, 
in  1345. 


THE  MIND  IN  BOOKS 

The  desirable  treasure  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  which  all 
men  covet  from  the  impulse  of  nature,  infinitely  surpasses 
all  the  riches  of  the  world;  in  comparison  with  which,  pre¬ 
cious  stones  are  vile,  silver  is  clay,  and  purified  gold  grains  of 
sand;  in  the  splendor  of  which,  the  sun  and  moon  grow  dim  to 
the  sight;  in  the  admirable  sweetness  of  which,  honey  and  manna 
are  bitter  to  the  taste.  The  value  of  wisdom  decreaseth  not 
with  time;  it  hath  an  ever-flourishing  virtue  that  cleanseth  its 
possession  from  every  venom.  O  celestial  gift  of  Divine  liberal¬ 
ity,  descending  from  the  Father  of  light  to  raise  up  the  rational 
soul  even  to  heaven;  thou  art  the  celestial  alimony  of  intellect, 
of  which  whosoever  eateth  shall  yet  hunger,  and  whoso  drinketh 
shall  yet  thirst;  a  harmony  rejoicing  the  soul  of  the  sorrowful, 
and  never  in  any  way  discomposing  the  hearer.  Thou  art  the 
moderator  and  the  rule  of  morals,  operating  according  to  which 
none  err.  By  thee  kings  reign,  and  lawgivers  decree  justly. 
Through  thee,  rusticity  of  nature  being  cast  off,  wits  and  tongues 


RICHARD  DE  BURY 


791 


being  polished,  and  the  thorns  of  vice  utterly  eradicated,  the  sum¬ 
mit  of  honor  is  reached  and  they  become  fathers  of  their  coun¬ 
try  and  companions  of  princes,  who,  without  thee,  might  have 
forged  their  lances  into  spades  and  plowshares,  or  perhaps  have 
fed  swine  with  the  prodigal  son.  Where,  then,  most  potent,  most 
longed-for  treasure,  art  thou  concealed  ?  and  where  shall  the 
thirsty  soul  find  thee  ?  Undoubtedly,  indeed,  thou  hast  placed  thy 
desirable  tabernacle  in  books,  where  the  Most  High,  the  Light 
of  light,  the  Book  of  Life,  hath  established  thee.  There  then  all 
who  ask  receive,  all  who  seek  find  thee,  to  those  who  knock 
thou  openest  quickly.  In  books  Cherubim  expand  their  wings, 
that  the  soul  of  the  student  may  ascend  and  look  around  from 
pole  to  pole,  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun,  from  the  north 
and  from  the  south.  In  them  the  Most  High,  Incomprehensible 
God  himself  is  contained  and  worshiped.  In  them  the  nature 
of  celestial,  terrestrial,  and  infernal  beings  is  laid  open.  In  them 
the  laws  by  which  every  polity  is  governed  are  decreed,  the  of¬ 
fices  of  the  celestial  hierarchy  are  distinguished,  and  tyrannies 
of  such  demons  are  described  as  the  ideas  of  Plato  never  sur¬ 
passed,  and  the  chair  of  Crato  never  sustained. 

In  books  we  find  the  dead  as  it  were  living;  in  books  we 
foresee  things  to  come;  in  books  warlike  affairs  are  methodized; 
the  rights  of  peace  proceed  from  books.  All  things  are  cor¬ 
rupted  and  decay  with  time.  Satan  never  ceases  to  devour  those 
whom  he  generates,  insomuch  that  the  glory  of  the  world  would 
be  lost  in  oblivion,  if  God  had  not  provided  mortals  with  a  rem¬ 
edy  in  books.  Alexander,  the  ruler  of  the  world;  Julius,  the 
invader  of  the  world  and  of  the  city,  the  first  who  in  unity  of 
person  assumed  the  empire  in  arms  and  arts;  the  faithful  Fabri- 
cius,  the  rigid  Cato,  would  at  this  day  have  been  without  a  me¬ 
morial  if  the  aid  of  books  had  failed  them.  Towers  are  razed 
to  the  earth,  cities  overthrown,  triumphal  arches  moldered  to 
dust;  nor  can  the  king  or  pope  be  found,  upon  whom  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  a  lasting  name  can  be  conferred  more  easily  than  by 
books.  A  book  made  renders  succession  to  the  author;  for  as 
long  as  the  book  exists,  the  author  remaining  dddvaro immortal, 
cannot  perish;  as  Ptolemy  witnesseth;  in  the  prologue  of  his  Al¬ 
magest,  he  (he  says)  is  not  dead,  who  gave  life  to  science. 

What  learned  scribe,  therefore,  who  draws  out  things  new  and 
old  from  an  infinite  treasury  of  books,  will  limit  their  price  by 
any  other  thing  whatsoever  of  another  kind  ?  Truth,  overcoming 


792 


RICHARD  DE  BURY 


all  things,  which  ranks  above  kings,  wine,  and  women,  to  honor 
which  above  friends  obtains  the  benefit  of  sanctity,  which  is 
the  way  that  deviates  not,  and  the  life  without  end,  to  which  the 
holy  Boethius  attributes  a  threefold  existence  in  the  mind,  in  the 
voice,  and  in  writing,  appears  to  abide  most  usefully  and  fructify 
most  productively  of  advantage  in  books.  For  the  truth  of  the 
voice  perishes  with  the  sound.  Truth,  latent  in  the  mind,  is  hid¬ 
den  wisdom  and  invisible  treasure;  but  the  truth  which  illumi¬ 
nates  books,  desires  to  manifest  itself  to  every  disciplinable  sense, 
to  the  sight  when  read,  to  the  hearing  when  heard;  it,  moreover, 
in  a  manner  commends  itself  to  the  touch,  when  submitting  to 
be  transcribed,  collated,  corrected,  and  preserved.  Truth  confined 
to  the  mind,  though  it  may  be  the  possession  of  a  noble  soul, 
while  it  wants  a  companion  and  is  not  judged  of,  either  by  the 
sight  or  the  hearing,  appears  to  be  inconsistent  with  pleasure. 
But  the  truth  of  the  voice  is  open  to  the  hearing  only,  and  latent 
to  the  sight  (which  shows  as  many  differences  of  things  fixed 
upon  by  a  most  subtle  motion,  beginning  and  ending  as  it  were 
simultaneously).  But  the  truth  written  in  a  book,  being  not 
fluctuating,  but  permanent,  shows  itself  openly  to  the  sight  pass¬ 
ing  through  the  spiritual  ways  of  the  eyes,  as  the  porches  and 
halls  of  common  sense  and  imagination;  it  enters  the  chamber 
of  intellect,  reposes  itself  upon  the  couch  of  memory,  and  there 
congenerates  the  eternal  truth  of  the  mind. 

Lastly,  let  us  consider  how  great  a  commodity  of  doctrine  ex¬ 
ists  in  books,  how  easily,  how  secretly,  how  safely  they  expose 
the  nakedness  of  human  ignorance  without  putting  it  to  shame. 
These  are  the  masters  that  instruct  us  without  rods  and  ferulas, 
without  hard  words  and  anger,  without  clothes  or  money.  If  you 
approach  them,  they  are  not  asleep;  if  investigating  you  inter¬ 
rogate  them,  they  conceal  nothing;  if  you  mistake  them,  they 
never  grumble;  if  you  are  ignorant,  they  cannot  laugh  at  you. 

From  the  ^Philobiblon.® 


793 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


(1692-1752) 


Joseph  Butler,  author  of  <(  Analogy  of  Religion,  Natural  and 
Revealed,  to  the  Constitution  and  Course  of  Nature,  ”  is 
QS  deservedly  ranked  among  the  masters  of  English  prose. 
This  great  work,  which  profoundly  influenced  the  thought  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  is  too  voluminous  to  come  within  the  definition 
of  the  essay  usually  accepted,  but  it  is  essentially  an  illustration  of 
the  same  methods  of  thought  and  habits  of  composition  which  give 
form  to  the  great  essays  of  Locke,  Mill,  and  Spencer.  Butler  was 
born  in  Berkshire,  England,  May  18th,  1692.  According  to  Hutchinson, 
(<he  was  of  most  reverend  aspect,  his  face  thin  and  pale,  but  with  a 
divine  placidness  which  inspired  veneration  and  expressed  the  most 
benevolent  mind.”  He  owed  his  advancement  in  the  church,  which 
he  entered  after  graduating  from  Oxford,  largely  to  the  friendship  of 
Queen  Caroline,  as  a  result  of  whose  request  made  on  her  deathbed 
he  was  appointed  Bishop  of  Bristol  in  1738.  In  1750  he  became 
Bishop  of  Durham  and  remained  in  that  see  until  his  death,  June 
16th,  1752. 


DOES  GOD  PUT  MEN  TO  THE  TEST? 

The  general  doctrine  of  religion,  that  our  present  life  is  a  state 
of  probation  for  a  future  one,  comprehends  under  it  several 
particular  things,  distinct  from  each  other.  But  the  first 
and  most  common  meaning  of  it  seems  to  be  that  our  future  in¬ 
terest  is  now  depending,  and  depending  upon  ourselves;  that  we 
have  scope  and  opportunities  here  for  that  good  and  bad  be¬ 
havior,  which  God  will  reward  and  punish  hereafter;  together 
with  temptations  to  one,  as  well  as  inducements  of  reason  to  the 
other.  And  this  is,  in  a  great  measure,  the  same  with  saying 
that  we  are  under  the  moral  government  of  God,  and  to  give  an 
account  of  our  actions  to  him.  For  the  notion  of  a  future  account 
and  general  righteous  judgment  implies  some  sort  of  tempta¬ 
tions  to  what  is  wrong;  otherwise  there  would  be  no  moral 


794 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


possibility  of  doing  wrong,  nor  ground  for  judgment  or  discrim¬ 
ination.  But  there  is  this  difference,  that  the  word  (<  probation  * 
is  more  distinctly  and  particularly  expressive  of  allurements  to 
wrong,  or  difficulties  in  adhering  uniformly  to  what  is  right,  and 
of  the  danger  of  miscarrying  by  such  temptations,  than  the  words 
<(  moral  government. }>  A  state  of  probation,  then,  as  thus  par¬ 
ticularly  implying  in  it  trial,  difficulties,  and  danger,  may  require 
to  be  considered  distinctly  by  itself. 

And  as  the  moral  government  of  God,  which  religion  teaches 
us,  implies  that  we  are  in  a  state  of  trial  with  regard  to  a  future 
world,  so  also  his  natural  government  over  us  implies  that  we 
are  in  a  state  of  trial,  in  the  like  sense,  with  regard  to  the  pres¬ 
ent  world.  Natural  government  by  rewards  and  punishments  as 
much  implies  natural  trial,  as  moral  government  does  moral  trial. 
The  natural  government  of  God  here  meant  consists  in  his  an¬ 
nexing  pleasure  to  some  actions,  and  pain  to  others,  which  are  in 
our  power  to  do  or  forbear,  and  in  giving  us  notice  of  such  ap¬ 
pointment  beforehand.  This  necessarily  implies  that  he  has  made 
our  happiness  and  misery,  or  our  interest,  to  depend  in  part  upon 
ourselves.  And  so  far  as  men  have  temptations  to  any  course  of 
action,  which  will  probably  occasion  them  greater  temporal  in¬ 
convenience  and  uneasiness  than  satisfaction,  so  far  their  tem¬ 
poral  interest  is  in  danger  from  themselves,  or  they  are  in  a 
state  of  trial  with  respect  to  it.  Now  people  often  blame  others, 
and  even  themselves,  for  their  misconduct  in  their  temporal  con¬ 
cerns.  And  we  find  many  are  greatly  wanting  to  themselves, 
and  miss  of  that  natural  happiness  which  they  might  have  ob¬ 
tained  in  the  present  life;  perhaps  every  one  does  in  some  degree. 
But  many  run  themselves  into  great  inconvenience,  and  into  ex¬ 
treme  distress  and  misery,  not  through  the  incapacity  of  know¬ 
ing  better  and  doing  better  for  themselves,  which  would  be 
nothing  to  the  present  purpose,  but  through  their  own  fault. 
And  these  things  necessarily  imply  temptation  and  danger  of 
miscarrying,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  with  respect  to  our 
worldly  interest  or  happiness.  Every  one  too,  without  having 
religion  in  his  thoughts,  speaks  of  the  hazards  which  young  peo¬ 
ple  run  upon  their  setting  out  in  the  world;  hazards  from  other 
causes  than  merely  their  ignorance  and  unavoidable  accidents. 
And  some  courses  of  vice,  at  least,  being  contrary  to  men’s 
worldly  interest  or  good,  temptations  to  these  must  at  the  same 
time  be  temptations  to  forego  our  present  and  our  future  interest. 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


795 


Thus,  in  our  natural  or  temporal  capacity,  we  are  in  a  state  of 
trial,  that  is,  of  difficulty  and  danger,  analogous  or  like  to  our 
moral  and  religious  trial. 

This  will  more  distinctly  appear  to  any  one  who  thinks  it 
worth  while  more  distinctly  to  consider  what  it  is  which  consti¬ 
tutes  our  trial  in  both  capacities,  and  to  observe  how  mankind 
behave  under  it. 

And  that  which  constitutes  this  our  trial,  in  both  these  capac¬ 
ities,  must  be  somewhat  either  in  our  external  circumstances  or 
in  our  nature.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  persons  may  be  betrayed 
into  wrong  behavior  upon  surprise,  or  overcome  upon  any  other 
very  singular  and  extraordinary  external  occasions,  who  would 
otherwise  have  preserved  their  character  of  prudence  and  of 
virtue:  in  which  cases  every  one,  in  speaking  of  the  wrong  be¬ 
havior  of  these  persons,  would  impute  it  to  such  particular  ex¬ 
ternal  circumstances.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  men  who  have 
contracted  habits  of  vice  and  folly  of  any  kind,  or  have  some 
particular  passions  in  excess,  will  seek  opportunities,  and,  as  it 
were,  go  out  of  their  way  to  gratify  themselves  in  these  respects, 
at  the  expense  of  their  wisdom  and  their  virtue;  led  to  it,  as 
every  one  would  say,  not  by  external  temptations,  but  by  such 
habits  and  passions.  And  the  account  of  this  last  case  is,  that 
particular  passions  are  no  more  coincident  with  prudence  or  that 
reasonable  self-love,  the  end  of  which  is  our  worldly  interest, 
than  they  are  with  the  principle  of  virtue  and  religion ;  but 
often  draw  contrary  ways  to  one,  as  well  as  to  the  other;  and  so 
such  particular  passions  are  as  much  temptations  to  act  impru¬ 
dently  with  regard  to  our  worldly  interest,  as  to  act  viciously. 
However,  as  when  we  say  men  are  misled  by  external  circum¬ 
stances  of  temptation,  it  cannot  but  be  understood  that  there  is 
somewhat  within  themselves  to  render  those  circumstances  temp¬ 
tations,  or  to  render  them  susceptible  of  impressions  from  them; 
so  when  we  say  they  are  misled  by  passions,  it  is  always  sup¬ 
posed  that  there  are  occasions,  circumstances,  and  objects  exciting 
these  passions,  and  affording  means  for  gratifying  them.  And 
therefore  temptations  from  within  and  from  without  coincide, 
and  mutually  imply  each  other.  Now,  the  several  external  ob¬ 
jects  of  the  appetites,  passions,  and  affections,  being  present  to 
the  senses,  or  offering  themselves  to  the  mind,  and  so  exciting 
emotions  suitable  to  their  nature,  not  only  in  cases  where  they 
can  be  gratified  consistently  with  innocence  and  prudence,  but 


796 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


also  in  cases  where  they  cannot,  and  yet  can  be  gratified  impru¬ 
dently  and  viciously;  this  as  really  puts  them  in  danger  of  vol¬ 
untarily  foregoing  their  present  interest  or  good  as  their  future, 
and  as  really  renders  self-denial  necessary  to  secure  one  as  the 
other;  that  is,  we  are  in  a  like  state  of  trial  with  respect  to 
both,  by  the  very  same  passions,  excited  by  the  very  same  means. 
Thus,  mankind  having  a  temporal  interest  depending  upon  them¬ 
selves,  and  a  prudent  course  of  behavior  being  necessary  to 
secure  it,  passions  inordinately  excited,  whether  by  means  of  ex¬ 
ample,  or  by  any  other  external  circumstance,  towards  such  objects, 
at  such  times,  or  in  such  degrees  as  that  they  cannot  be  gratified 
consistently  with  worldly  prudence,  are  temptations,  dangerous 
and  too  often  successful  temptations,  to  forego  a  greater  tem¬ 
poral  good  for  a  less;  that  is,  to  forego  what  is,  upon  the  whole, 
our  temporal  interest,  for  the  sake  of  a  present  gratification. 
This  is  a  description  of  our  state  of  trial  in  our  temporal  capacity. 
Substitute  now  the  word <(  future  y>  for  (<  temporal, }>  and  (<  virtue  w  for 
<(  prudence,  ®  and  it  will  be  just  as  proper  a  description  of  our  state  of 
trial  in  our  religious  capacity,  so  analogous  are  they  to  each  other. 

If,  from  consideration  of  this  our  like  state  of  trial  in  both 
capacities,  we  go  on  to  observe  further  how  mankind  behave  un¬ 
der  it,  we  shall  find  there  are  some  who  have  so  little  sense  of 
it  that  they  scarce  look  beyond  the  passing  day;  they  are  so 
taken  up  with  present  gratifications  as  to  have,  in  a  manner,  no 
feeling-  of  consequences,  no  regard  to  their  future  ease  or  fortune 
in  this  life,  any  more  than  to  their  happiness  in  another.  Some 
appear  to  be  blinded  and  deceived  by  inordinate  passion  in  their 
worldly  concerns,  as  much  as  in  religion.  Others  are  not  de¬ 
ceived,  but,  as  it  were,  forcibly  carried  away  by  the  like  passions, 
against  their  better  judgment  and  feeble  resolutions  too  of  acting 
better.  And  there  are  men,  and  truly  they  are  not  a  few,  who 
shamelessly  avow,  not  their  interest,  but  their  mere  will  and 
pleasure,  to  be  their  law  of  life;  and  who,  in  open  defiance  of 
everything  that  is  reasonable,  will  go  on  in  a  course  of  vicious 
extravagance,  foreseeing  with  no  remorse  and  little  fear  that  it 
will  be  their  temporal  ruin;  and  some  of  them,  under  the  appre¬ 
hension  of  the  consequences  of  wickedness  in  another  state. 
And,  to  speak  in  the  most  moderate  way,  human  creatures  are 
not  only  continually  liable  to  go  wrong  voluntarily,  but  we  see 
likewise  that  they  often  actually  do  so  with  respect  to  their 
temporal  interests,  as  well  as  with  respect  to  religion. 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


797 


Thus  our  difficulties  and  dangers,  or  our  trials,  in  our  temporal 
and  our  religious  capacity,  as  they  proceed  from  the  same  causes, 
and  have  the  same  effect  upon  men’s  behavior,  are  evidently 
analogous,  and  of  the  same  kind. 

It  may  be  added  that  as  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  mis¬ 
carrying  in  our  religious  state  of  trial  are  greatly  increased,  and, 
one  is  ready  to  think,  in  a  manner  wholly  made  by  the  ill  be¬ 
havior  of  others;  by  a  wrong  education,  wrong  in  a  moral  sense, 
sometimes  positively  vicious,  by  general  bad  example,  by  the  dis¬ 
honest  artifices  which  are  got  into  business  of  all  kinds,  and,  in 
very  many  parts  of  the  world,  by  religion  being  corrupted  into 
superstitions,  which  indulge  men  in  their  vices;  so  in  like  manner 
the  difficulties  of  conducting  ourselves  prudently  in  respect  to 
our  present  interest,  and  our  danger  of  being  led  aside  from 
pursuing  it,  are  greatly  increased  by  a  foolish  education;  and, 
after  we  come  to  mature  age,  by  the  extravagance  and  careless¬ 
ness  of  others  whom  we  have  intercourse  with,  and  by  mistaken 
notions  very  generally  prevalent,  and  taken  up  for  common  opin¬ 
ion,  concerning  temporal  happiness,  and  wherein  it  consists. 
And  persons,  by  their  own  negligence  and  folly  in  their  temporal 
affairs,  no  less  than  by  a  course  of  vice,  bring  themselves  into 
new  difficulties,  and  by  habits  of  indulgence  become  less  qualified 
to  go  through  them;  and  one  irregularity  after  another  embar¬ 
rasses  things  to  such  a  degree  that  they  know  not  whereabout 
they  are,  and  often  makes  the  path  of  conduct  so  intricate  and 
perplexed  that  it  is  difficult  to  trace  it  out  —  difficult  even  to  de¬ 
termine  what  is  the  prudent  or  the  moral  part.  Thus,  for  instance, 
wrong  behavior  in  one  stage  of  life,  youth  —  wrong,  I  mean,  con¬ 
sidering  ourselves  only  in  our  temporal  capacity,  without  taking 
in  religion  —  this,  in  several  ways,  increases  the  difficulties  of  right 
behavior  in  mature  age,  that  is,  puts  us  into  a  more  disadvanta¬ 
geous  state  of  trial  in  our  temporal  capacity. 

We  are  an  inferior  part  of  the  creation  of  God.  There  are 
natural  appearances  of  our  being  in  a  state  of  degradation.  And 
we  certainly  are  in  a  condition  which  does  not  seem  by  any  means 
the  most  advantageous  we  could  imagine  or  desire,  either  in  our 
natural  or  moral  capacity,  for  securing  either  our  present  or  future 
interest.  However,  this  condition,  low,  and  careful,  and  uncer¬ 
tain  as  it  is,  does  not  afford  any  just  ground  of  complaint.  For 
as  men  may  manage  their  temporal  affairs  with  prudence,  and  so 
pass  their  days  here  on  earth  in  tolerable  ease  and  satisfaction  by 


798 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


a  moderate  degree  of  care,  so  likewise  with  regard  to  religion, 
there  is  no  more  required  than  what  they  are  well  able  to  do,  and 
what  they  must  be  greatly  wanting  to  themselves  if  they  neglect. 
And  for  persons  to  have  that  put  upon  them  which  they  are  well 
able  to  go  through,  and  no  more,  we  naturally  consider  as  an 
equitable  thing,  supposing  it  done  by  proper  authority.  Nor  have 
we  any  more  reason  to  complain  of  it,  with  regard  to  the  Author 
of  nature,  than  of  his  not  having  given  us  other  advantages 
belonging  to  other  orders  of  creatures. 

But  the  thing  here  insisted  upon  is,  that  the  state  of  trial 
which  religion  teaches  us  we  are  in  is  rendered  credible  by  its 
being  throughout  uniform,  and  of  a  piece  with  the  general  con¬ 
duct  of  Providence  towards  us,  in  all  other  respects  within  the 
compass  of  our  knowledge.  Indeed,  if  mankind,  considered  in 
their  natural  capacity  as  inhabitants  of  this  world  only,  found 
themselves,  from  their  birth  to  their  death,  in  a  settled  state  of 
security  and  happiness,  without  any  solicitude  or  thought  of  their 
own,  or  if  they  were  in  no  danger  of  being  brought  into  incon¬ 
veniences  and  distress,  by  carelessness  or  the  folly  of  passion, 
through  bad  example,  the  treachery  of  others,  or  the  deceitful 
appearances  of  things — were  this  our  natural  condition,  then  it 
might  seem  strange,  and  be  some  presumption  against  the  truth 
of  religion,  that  it  represents  our  future  and  more  general  inter¬ 
est,  as  not  secure  of  course,  but  as  depending  upon  our  behavior, 
and  requiring  recollection  and  self-government  to  obtain  it.  For 
it  might  be  alleged,  <(What  you  say  is  our  condition  in  one  re¬ 
spect  is  not  in  any  wise  of  a  sort  with  what  we  find  by  experience 
our  condition  is  in  another.  Our  whole  present  interest  is  secured 
to  our  hands  without  any  solicitude  of  ours;  and  why  should  not 
our  future  interest,  if  we  have  any  such,  be  so  too  ?  ®  But  since, 
on  the  contrary,  thought  and  consideration,  the  voluntary  denying 
ourselves  many  things  which  we  desire,  and  a  course  of  behavior 
far  from  being  always  agreeable  to  us,  are  absolutely  necessary  to 
our  acting  even  a  common  decent  and  common  prudent  part,  so 
as  to  pass  with  any  satisfaction  through  the  present  world,  and  be 
received  upon  any  tolerable  good  terms  in  it  —  since  this  is  the 
case,  all  presumption  against  self-denial  and  attention  being  nec¬ 
essary  to  secure  our  higher  interest  is  removed.  Had  we  not 
experience,  it  might,  perhaps,  speciously  be  urged,  that  it  is  im¬ 
probable  anything  of  hazard  and  danger  should  be  put  upon  us 
by  an  Infinite  Being;  when  everything  which  is  hazard  and  dan- 


JOSEPH  BUTLER 


799 


ger  in  our  manner  of  conception,  and  will  end  in  error,  confu¬ 
sion,  and  misery,  is  now  already  certain  in  his  foreknowledge. 
And,  indeed,  why  anything  of  hazard  and  danger  should  be  put 
upon  such  frail  creatures  as  we  are  may  well  be  thought  a  difficulty 
in  speculation,  and  cannot  but  be  so,  till  we  know  the  whole,  or, 
however,  much  more  of  the  case.  But  still  the  constitution  of 
nature  is  as  it  is.  Our  happiness  and  misery  are  trusted  to  our 
conduct,  and  made  to  depend  upon  it.  Somewhat,  and  in  many 
circumstances  a  great  deal  too,  is  put  upon  us  either  to  do  or  to 
suffer,  as  we  choose.  And  all  the  various  miseries  of  life,  which 
people  bring  upon  themselves  by  negligence  and  folly,  and  might 
have  avoided  by  proper  care,  are  instances  of  this;  which  miseries 
are  beforehand  just  as  contingent  and  undetermined  as  their  con¬ 
duct,  and  left  to  be  determined  by  it. 

These  observations  are  an  answer  to  the  objections  against 
the  credibility  of  a  state  of  trial,  as  implying  temptations,  and 
real  danger  of  miscarrying  with  regard  to  our  general  interest, 
under  the  moral  government  of  God;  and  they  show  that,  if  we 
are  at  all  to  be  considered  in  such  a  capacity,  and  as  having 
such  an  interest,  the  general  analogy  of  Providence  must  lead  us 
to  apprehend  ourselves  in  danger  of  miscarrying,  in  different  de¬ 
grees,  as  to  this  interest,  by  our  neglecting  to  act  the  proper  part 
belonging  to  us  in  that  capacity.  For  we  have  a  present  interest 
under  the  government  of  God,  which  we  experience  here  upon 
earth.  And  this  interest,  as  it  is  not  forced  upon  us,  so  neither 
is  it  offered  to  our  acceptance,  but  to  our  acquisition;  in  such 
sort,  as  that  we  are  in  danger  of  missing  it,  by  means  of  tempta¬ 
tions  to  neglect  or  act  contrary  to  it,  and  without  attention  and 
self-denial,  must  and  do  miss  of  it.  It  is  then  perfectly  credible 
that  this  may  be  our  case  with  respect  to  that  chief  and  final 
good  which  religion  proposes  to  us. 

From  (<  The  Analogy  of  Religion, 
Natural  and  Revealed. w 


8oo 


LORD  BYRON 

(George  Noel  Gordon  Byron) 

(1788-1824) 

ord  Byron  had  a  practice,  unfortunately  too  common  with 
poets,  of  doing  his  best  only  in  verse.  He  did  not  polish 
his  prose,  but  it  is  often  so  close  to  the  highest  excellence 
that  if  it  were  allowable  to  edit  it  with  half  the  freedom  some  con¬ 
scientious  scholars  allow  themselves  in  bringing  the  Greek  and  Latin 
classics  up  to  the  modern  standard  of  classical  perfection,  it  might 
not  be  difficult  to  convert  him  into  one  of  the  great  masters  of  Eng¬ 
lish  prose  style,  as  he  certainly  was  of  English  versification.  Thus 
in  the  sentence:  <(  The  beautiful  but  barren  Hymettus, —  the  whole 
coast  of  Attica,  her  hills  and  mountains,  Pentelicus  Anchesmus,  Phil- 
opappus,  etc.,  etc., —  are  in  themselves  poetical  and  would  be  so  if 
the  name  of  Athens,  of  Athenians,  and  her  very  ruins  were  swept  from 
the  earth, ” —  we  have  almost  at  a  stroke  of  the  pen  the  suggestion  of 
that  memorable  sweep  of  sea,  plain,  and  mountain  which  inspired  the 
highest  imagination  of  Greece  to  the  world’s  highest  ideal  of  beauty. 
Why,  then,  did  Byron  use  the  deplorable  <(  et  cetera  et  cetera ,”  which 
almost  spoils  it  even  for  the  few  who  can  translate  the  double  <(  et 
cetera ”  into  all  that  it  means  for  those  who  are  most  familiar  with 
(< the  beautiful  but  barren  Hymettus ”  and  the  coast  of  Attica?  It 
can  only  be  answered  that  such  faults  are  allowable  only  to  Byron, 
because  no  one  else  could  have  written  such  sentences.  The  <(  De¬ 
fense  of  Pope,”  in  which  this  occurs,  was  inspired  by  strong  affection 
and  deep  admiration.  Pope  indeed  was  his  master,  and  it  is  to  Pope, 
more  quoted  than  any  English  poet  except  Shakespeare,  that  he  owes 
much  of  the  art  by  virtue  of  which  he  ranks  with  Pope  and  Shakes¬ 
peare  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  quotable  poets. 


ART  AND  NATURE 

The  beautiful  but  barren  Hymettus, — the  whole  coast  of  Attica, 
her  hills  and  mountains,  Pentelicus,  Anchesmus,  Philopappus, 
etc.,  etc., — are  in  themselves  poetical,  and  would  be  so  if 
the  name  of  Athens,  of  Athenians,  and  her  very  ruins,  were  swept 
from  the  earth.  But  am  I  to  be  told  that  the  a  nature  ”  of  Attica 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSE  OF  ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


LORD  BYRON 


Sol 

would  be  more  poetical  without  the  <(  art 0  of  the  Acropolis  ?  of 
the  temple  of  Theseus  ?  and  of  the  still  all  Greek  and  glorious 
monuments  of  her  exquisitely  artificial  genius  ?  Ask  the  traveler 
what  strikes  him  as  most  poetical, —  the  Parthenon,  or  the  rock 
on  which  it  stands  ?  The  columns  of  Cape  Colonna,  or  the  cape 
itself  ?  The  rocks  at  the  foot  of  it,  or  the  recollection  that  Fal¬ 
coner’s  ship  was  bulged  upon  them  ?  There  are  a  thousand  rocks 
and  capes  far  more  picturesque  than  those  of  the  Acropolis  and 
Cape  Sunium  in  themselves;  what  are  they  to  a  thousand  scenes 
in  the  wilder  parts  of  Greece,  of  Asia  Minor,  Switzerland,  or  even 
of  Cintra  in  Portugal,  or  to  many  scenes  of  Italy,  and  the  Sierras 
of  Spain?  But  it  is  the  <( art, 0  the  columns,  the  temples,  the 
wrecked  vessels,  which  give  them  their  antique  and  their  modern 
poetry,  and  not  the  spots  themselves.  Without  them,  the  spots 
of  earth  would  be  unnoticed  and  unknown;  buried,  like  Babylon 
and  Nineveh,  in  indistinct  confusion,  without  poetry,  as  without 
existence;  but  to  whatever  spot  of  earth  these  ruins  were  trans¬ 
ported,  if  they  were  capable  of  transportation,  like  the  obelisk, 
and  the  sphinx,  and  Memnon’s  head,  there  they  would  still  exist 
in  the  perfection  of  their  beauty,  and  in  the  pride  of  their  poetry. 
I  opposed,  and  will  ever  oppose,  the  robbery  of  ruins  from  Athens 
to  instruct  the  English  in  sculpture ;  but  why  did  I  do  so  ?  The 
ruins  are  as  poetical  in  Piccadilly  as  they  were  in  the  Parthenon ; 
but  the  Parthenon  and  its  rock  are  less  so  without  them.  Such 
is  the  poetry  of  art. 

Mr.  Bowles  contends  again  that  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  are 
poetical,  because  of  <(  the  association  with  boundless  deserts,0  and 
that  a  <( pyramid  of  the  same  dimensions0  would  not  be  sublime 
in  (<  Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields  0 :  not  so  poetical  certainly;  but  take  away 
the  « pyramids,0  and  what  is  the  <(  desert0?  Take  away  Stone¬ 
henge  from  Salisbury  Plain,  and  it  is  nothing  more  than  Houns¬ 
low  Heath,  or  any  other  uninclosed  down.  It  appears  to  me  that 
St.  Peter’s,  the  Coliseum,  the  Pantheon,  the  Palatine,  the  Apollo, 
the  Laocoon,  the  Venus  di  Medicis,  the  Hercules,  the  Dying  Glad¬ 
iator,  the  Moses  of  Michael  Angelo,  and  all  the  higher  works  of 
Canova  (I  have  already  spoken  of  those  of  ancient  Greece,  still 
extant  in  that  country,  or  transported  to  England),  are  as  poetical 
as  Mont  Blanc,  or  Mont  A^tna,  perhaps  still  more  so,  as  they  are 
direct  manifestations  of  mind,  and  presuppose  poetry  in  their  very 
conception;  and  have,  moreover,  as  being  such,  a  something  of 
actual  life,  which  cannot  belong  to  any  part  of  inanimate  nature, 
ii — 51 


802 


LORD  BYRON 


—  unless  we  adopt  the  system  of  Spinoza,  that  the  world  is  the 
Deity.  There  can  be  nothing  more  poetical  in  its  aspect  than 
the  city  of  Venice;  does  this  depend  upon  the  sea,  or  the  canals? 

<(The  dirt  and  seaweed  whence  proud  Venice  rose?” 

Is  it  the  canal  which  runs  between  the  palace  and  the  prison,  or 
the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  which  connects  them,  that  renders  it  poet¬ 
ical  ?  Is  it  the  Canal  Grande,  or  the  Rialto  which  arches  it,  the 
churches  which  tower  over  it,  the  palaces  which  line,  and  the 
gondolas  which  glide  over,  the  waters,  that  render  this  city  more 
poetical  than  Rome  itself  ?  Mr.  Bowles  will  say,  perhaps,  that 
the  Rialto  is  but  marble,  the  palaces  and  churches  are  only  stone, 
and  the  gondolas  a  (<  coarse  ”  black  cloth  thrown  over  some  planks 
of  carved  wood,  with  a  shining  bit  of  fantastically  formed  iron  at 
the  prow,  <(  without  ”  the  water.  And  I  tell  him  that,  without 
these,  the  water  would  be  nothing  but  a  clay-colored  ditch;  and 
whoever  says  the  contrary  deserves  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  that 
where  Pope’s  heroes  are  embraced  by  the  mud  nymphs.  There 
would  be  nothing  to  make  the  Canal  of  Venice  more  poetical 
than  that  of  Paddington,  were  it  not  for  the  artificial  adjuncts 
above  mentioned,  although  it  is  a  perfectly  natural  canal,  formed 
by  the  sea  and  the  innumerable  islands  which  constitute  the  site 
of  this  extraordinary  city. 

The  very  Cloaca  of  Tarquin  at  Rome  are  as  poetical  as  Rich¬ 
mond  Hill;  many  will  think  so:  take  away  Rome  and  leave  the 
Tiber  and  the  seven  hills  in  the  nature  of  Evander’s  time.  Let 
Mr.  Bowles,  or  Mr.  Wordsworth,  or  Mr.  Southey,  or  any  of  the 
other  (<  naturals,  ”  make  a  poem  upon  them,  and  then  see  which 
is  most  poetical, — their  production,  or  the  commonest  guidebook 
which  tells  you  the  road  from  St.  Peter’s  to  the  Coliseum,  and 
informs  you  what  you  will  see  by  the  way.  The  ground  interests 
in  Virgil,  because  it  will  be  Rome,  and  not  because  it  is  Evan¬ 
der’s  rural  domain. 

Mr.  Bowles  then  proceeds  to  press  Homer  into  his  service  in 
answer  to  a  remark  of  Mr.  Campbell’s,  that  <(  Homer  was  a  great 
describer  of  works  of  art.”  Mr.  Bowles  contends  that  all  his 
great  power,  even  in  this,  depends  upon  their  connection  with 
nature.  The  <(  shield  of  Achilles  derives  its  poetical  interest 
from  the  subjects  described  on  it.”  And  from  what  does  the 
spear  of  Achilles  derive  its  interest  ?  and  the  helmet  and  the  mail 
worn  by  Patroclus,  and  the  celestial  armor,  and  the  very  brazen 


LORD  BYRON 


803 


greaves  of  the  well-booted  Greeks  ?  Is  it  solely  from  the  legs, 
and  the  back,  and  the  breast,  and  the  human  body,  which  they 
inclose  ?  In  that  case  it  would  have  been  more  poetical  to  have 
made  them  fight  naked;  and  Gully  and  Gregson,  as  being  nearer 
to  a  state  ot  nature,  are  more  poetical  boxing  in  a  pair  of 
drawers,  than  Hector  and  Achilles  in  radiant  armor  and  with 
heroic  weapons. 

Instead  of  the  clash  of  helmets,  and  the  rushing  of  chariots, 
and  the  whizzing  of  spears,  and  the  glancing  of  swords,  and  the 
cleaving  of  shields,  and  the  piercing  of  breastplates,  why  not 
represent  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  like  two  savage  tribes,  tugging 
and  tearing,  and  kicking  and  biting,  and  gnashing,  foaming,  grin¬ 
ning,  and  gouging,  in  all  the  poetry  of  martial  nature,  unen¬ 
cumbered  with  gross,  prosaic,  artificial  arms;  an  equal  superfluity 
to  the  natural  warrior  and  his  natural  poet  ?  Is  there  anything 
unpoetical  in  Ulysses  striking  the  horses  of  Rhesus  with  his  bow 
(having  forgotten  his  thong),  or  would  Mr.  Bowles  have  had  him 
kick  them  with  his  foot,  or  smack  them  with  his  hand,  as  being 
more  unsophisticated  ? 

In  Gray’s  <(  Elegy  ®  is  there  an  image  more  striking  than  his 
(<  shapeless  sculpture  ®  ?  Of  sculpture  in  general,  it  may  be  ob¬ 
served  that  it  is  more  poetical  than  nature  itself,  inasmuch  as  it 
represents  and  bodies  forth  that  ideal  beauty  and  sublimity  which 
is  never  to  be  found  in  actual  nature.  This,  at  least,  is  the  gen¬ 
eral  opinion.  But,  always  excepting  the  Venus  di  Medicis,  I 
differ  from  that  opinion,  at  least  as  far  as  regards  female  beauty; 
for  the  head  of  Lady  Claremont  (when  I  first  saw  her  nine 
years  ago)  seemed  to  possess  all  that  sculpture  could  require  for 
its  ideal.  I  recollect  seeing  something  of  the  same  kind  in  the 
head  of  an  Albanian  girl,  who  was  actually  employed  in  mend¬ 
ing  a  road  in  the  mountains,  and  in  some  Greek,  and  one  or  two 
Italian,  faces.  But  of  sublimity,  I  have  never  seen  anything  in 
human  nature  at  all  to  approach  the  expression  of  sculpture, 
either  in  the  Apollo,  in  the  Moses,  or  other  of  the  sterner  works 
of  ancient  or  modern  art. 

Let  us  examine  a  little  further  this  (<  babble  of  green  fields  * 
and  of  bare  nature  in  general  as  superior  to  artificial  imagery, 
for  the  poetical  purposes  of  the  fine  arts.  In  landscape  painting 
the  great  artist  does  not  give  you  a  literal  copy  of  a  country, 
but  he  invents  and  composes  one.  Nature,  in  her  natural  as¬ 
pect,  does  not  furnish  him  with  such  existing  scenes  as  he 
requires.  Everywhere  he  presents  you  with  some  famous  city. 


804 


LORD  BYRON 


or  celebrated  scene  from  mountain  or  other  nature;  it  must  be 
taken  from  some  particular  point  of  view,  and  with  such  light, 
and  shade,  and  distance,  etc.,  as  serve  not  only  to  heighten  its 
beauties,  but  to  shadow  its  deformities.  The  poetry  of  nature 
alone,  exactly  as  she  appears,  is  not  sufficient  to  bear  him  out. 
The  very  sky  of  his  painting  is  not  the  portrait  of  the  sky  of 
nature;  it  is  a  composition  of  different  skies,  observed  at  differ¬ 
ent  times,  and  not  the  whole  copied  from  any  particular  day. 
And  why  ?  Because  nature  is  not  lavish  of  her  beauties ;  they 
are  widely  scattered  and  occasionally  displayed,  to  be  selected 
with  care  and  gathered  with  difficulty. 

Of  sculpture  I  have  just  spoken.  It  is  the  great  scope  of  the 
sculptor  to  heighten  nature  into  heroic  beauty,  that  is,  in  plain 
English,  to  surpass  his  model.  When  Canova  forms  a  statue,  he 
takes  a  limb  from  one,  a  hand  from  another,  a  feature  from  a 
third,  and  a  shape,  it  may  be,  from  a  fourth,  probably  at  the 
same  time  improving  upon  all,  as  the  Greek  of  old  did  in  em¬ 
bodying  his  Venus. 

Ask  a  portrait  painter  to  describe  his  agonies  in  accommodat¬ 
ing  the  faces,  with  which  nature  and  his  sitters  have  crowded  his 
painting  room,  to  the  principles  of  his  art;  with  the  exception  of 
perhaps  ten  faces  in  as  many  millions,  there  is  not  one  which  he 
can  venture  to  give  without  shading  much  and  adding  more. 
Nature,  exactly,  simply,  barely  nature,  will  make  no  great  artist 
of  any  kind,  and  least  of  all  a  poet,  —  the  most  artificial,  perhaps, 
of  all  artists  in  his  very  essence.  With  regard  to  natural  im- 
agery,  the  poets  are  obliged  to  take  some  of  their  best  illustra¬ 
tions  from  art.  You  say  that  a  (<  fountain  is  as  clear  or  clearer 
than  glass, }>  to  express  its  beauty:  — 

<(  O  fons  Bandusice,  splendidior  vitro!'* 

In  the  speech  of  Mark  Antony,  the  body  of  Caesar  is  displayed, 
but  so  also  is  his  mantle:  — 

(<You  all  do  know  this  mantle, )}  etc. 

(<Look!  in  this  place  ran  Cassius’  dagger  through.  ® 

If  the  poet  had  said  that  Cassius  had  run  his  fist  through  the 
rent  of  the  mantle,  it  would  have  had  more  of  Mr.  Bowles’s  <(  na¬ 
ture  J)  to  help  it ;  but  the  artificial  dagger  is  more  poetical  than 
any  natural  hand  without  it.  In  the  sublime  of  sacred  poetry, 
<(  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom  ?  with  dyed  garments  from 


LORD  BYRON 


805 


Bozrah?”  Would  <(  the  comer w  be  poetical  without  his  (<  dyed 
garments,  ®  which  strike  and  startle  the  spectator,  and  identify 
the  approaching  object  ? 

The  mother  of  Sisera  is  represented  listening  for  the  <(  wheels 
of  his  chariot. })  Solomon,  in  his  Song,  compares  the  nose  of  his 
beloved  to  a  (<  tower, >}  which  to  us  appears  an  Eastern  exaggera¬ 
tion.  If  he  had  said  that  her  stature  was  like  that  of  a  <(  tower y> 
it  would  have  been  as  poetical  as  if  he  had  compared  her  to  a 
tree. 

<(The  virtuous  Marcia  towers  above  her  sex,® 

is  an  instance  of  an  artificial  image  to  express  a  moral  superior¬ 
ity.  But,  Solomon,  it  is  probable,  did  not  compare  his  beloved’s 
nose  to  a  (<  tower  ®  on  account  of  its  length,  but  of  its  symmetry; 
and  making  allowance  for  Eastern  hyperbole,  and  the  difficulty  of 
finding  a  discreet  image  for  a  female  nose  in  nature,  it  is  per¬ 
haps  as  good  a  figure  as  any  other. 

Art  is  not  inferior  to  nature  for  poetical  purposes.  What 
makes  a  regiment  of  soldiers  a  more  noble  object  of  view  than 
the  same  mass  of  mob  ?  Their  arms,  their  dresses,  their  banners, 
and  the  art  and  artificial  symmetry  of  their  position  and  move¬ 
ments.  A  Highlander’s  plaid,  a  Musselman’s  turban,  and  a  Roman 
toga,  are  more  poetical  than  the  tattooed  or  untattooed  New  Sand¬ 
wich  savages,  although  they  were  described  by  William  Words¬ 
worth  himself  like  the  <(  idiot  in  his  glory. ® 

5  I  have  seen  as  many  mountains  as  most  men,  and  more  fleets 
than  the  generality  of  landsmen;  and,  to  my  mind,  a  large  con¬ 
voy  with  a  few  sail  of  the  line  to  conduct  them  is  as  noble  and 
as  poetical  a  prospect  as  all  that  inanimate  nature  can  produce. 
I  prefer  the  <(  mast  of  some  great  admiral, ®  with  all  its  tackle,  to 
the  Scotch  fir  or  the  Alpine  tarnen,  and  think  that  more  poetry 
has  been  made  out  of  it.  In  what  does  the  infinite  superiority 
of  Falconer’s  (<  Shipwreck  ®  over  all  other  shipwrecks  consist?  In 
his  admirable  application  of  the  terms  of  his  art;  in  a  poet  sailor’s 
description  of  the  sailor’s  fate.  These  very  terms,  by  his  appli¬ 
cation,  make  the  strength  and  reality  of  his  poem.  Why  ?  be¬ 
cause  he  was  a  poet,  and  in  the  hands  of  a  poet  art  will  not  be 
found  less  ornamental  than  nature.  It  is  precisely  in  general 
nature,  and  in  stepping  out  of  his  element,  that  Falconer  fails; 
where  he  digresses  to  speak  of  ancient  Greece,  and  <(  such  branches 
of  learning.® 


From  his  (<  Defense  of  Pope.® 


8  o6 


HALL  CAINE 

(1853-) 

all  Caine,  famous  as  the  author  of  (<The  Deemster, ®  <(The 


Manxman, }>  and  <(The  Christian, }>  was  born  in  Cheshire,  Eng¬ 
land,  May  14th,  1853.  His  great  reputation  as  a  novelist 


should  not  lead  his  admirers  to  forget  that  he  is  one  of  the  most 
attractive  of  living  English  essayists.  His  studies  of  Shakespeare, 
which,  with  his  other  essays,  are  still  uncollected,  are  made  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  novelist,  who,  as  a  creator  of  imaginary  characters, 
studies  the  great  dramatist  to  gain  assurance  in  creative  work. 


ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE’S  ART 


here  can  be  little  doubt  that  Shakespeare  found  the  nucleus 


of  fact  on  which  he  based  his  characters  in  real  intercourse 


with  men.  But  he  did  more  than  transfer  the  figures  he 
saw  in  life  to  the  canvas  of  his  invention.  If  he  had  merely  set 
down,  however  faithfully,  the  men  and  women  he  actually  beheld 
in  the  flesh,  he  must  soon  have  been  forgotten.  Some  of  his 
contemporaries  did  that,  and  with  what  results  we  know.  He 
doubtless  saw  many  a  Sir  John  Falstaff  strutting  bodily  before 
him  at  the  Mermaid  Tavern,  but  he  did  not  depict  under  that 
name  any  individual  charlatan  he  chanced  to  meet  there.  If  he 
had  done  so,  we  who  live  in  days  when  soldiers  do  not  think  it 
necessary  for  the  better  support  of  their  valor  to  forswear  thin 
potations,  and  addict  themselves  to  sack,  would  probably  care 
very  little  for  the  character,  notwithstanding  the  attractions  per¬ 
taining  to  it  of  that  Rabelaisean  humor  which  never  disturbs  us 
with  any  question  as  to  the  side  of  our  face  on  which  the  laugh 
should  be.  But  the  whole  family  of  swaggering  topers  from  Sir 
John’s  day  down  to  our  own  have  had  certain  features  of  family 
resemblance,  and  these  features  Shakespeare  waited  for  and  por¬ 
trayed.  So  Sir  John  Falstaff  becomes  a  type,  and  hence  is  ap¬ 
plicable  to  every  age,  because  representative  of  his  phase  of 
humanity  in  every  age.  The  same  truth  that  explains  to  us  the 


HALL  CAINE 


807 


basis  of  the  immortality  of  Falstaff  applies  to  every  notable 
character  Shakespeare  depicts.  The  poet  never  goes  to  work 
(as,  according  to  an  acute  critic,  the  young  pre-Raphaelites  did 
in  1850)  as  a  photographic  camera,  but  always  as  a  creative  in¬ 
telligence,  and  this  is  what  Coleridge  means  in  the  argument 
in  which  he  shows  that  Shakespeare  passed  every  conception 
through  the  medium  of  his  meditative  genius.  Nor  is  this  true 
merely  of  Shakespeare’s  method  of  projecting  character  in  the 
realm  of  what  the  actors  call  eccentric  comedy,  for  in  dealing 
with  heroic  character  his  art  is  the  same.  Glance  at  Romeo. 
It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  an  individual  answering  to  the 
young  Montague  engaged  in  that  shadowy  historical  occurrence 
which  is  referred  to  the  first  years  of  the  fourteenth  century; 
but  none  the  less  on  that  account  is  he  typical  of  certain  ro¬ 
mantic  young  lovers  in  all  ages.  He  begins  by  sighing  over 
some  fugitive  passion  for  a  mythical  Rosaline,  and  presently  for¬ 
gets  the  paragon  in  his  new-found  passion  for  the  more  respon¬ 
sive  Juliet.  There  may  not  exist  either  historical  or  traditional 
ground  for  believing  that  the  original  of  the  Romeo  of  Luigi  da 
Porto  and  Bandello  had  in  fact  any  such  preliminary  passion ; 
but  Shakespeare  knew  from  observation,  and  perhaps  from  per¬ 
sonal  experience,  that  a  vague,  indeterminate  condition  of  mind 
and  heart  usually  precedes  the  ordeal  known  as  falling  in  love, 
and  therefore  (following  Arthur  Brooke  in  part)  he  gave  Romeo 
an  unrequited  attachment,  or  shadow  of  attachment,  in  which  he 
is  much  more  in  love  with  his  own  thoughts  than  with  anything 
more  substantial.  So  Romeo,  without  ceasing  to  be  a  son  of  the 
house  of  Montague,  becomes  a  type  of  all  the  sons  of  the  house 
of  Love.  It  was  the  typical  feature  of  Romeo’s  character  that 
Mr.  Irving  brought  most  into  prominence  in  his  recent  imper¬ 
sonation  of  the  part,  and  in  giving  relief  to  so  salient  a  charac¬ 
teristic  Mr.  Irving  did  well;  but  perhaps  the  chief  imperfection 
of  his  performance  was  a  too  prolonged  dwelling  upon  this  sub¬ 
jective  side  of  Romeo’s  passion,  apparently  to  the  total  disregard 
of  the  clear  fact  that  Shakespeare  meant  no  more  by  it  than  to 
generalize  on  the  beginnings  of  all  human  passion,  and  then  pass 
on  to  the  story  of  an  individual  and  very  concrete  affection. 

Look  now  at  Hamlet.  When  Shakespeare  took  up  that  char¬ 
acter  it  was  a  bald,  traditional  conception,  simply  of  a  common¬ 
place  young  prince,  having  coarse  appetites  and  gross  passions, 
who  had  been  supplanted  in  the  royal  succession  by  an  uncle 


8o8 


HALL  CAINE 


who  had  murdered  his  father  and  married  his  mother;  but 
Shakespeare  shed  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  character,  and  the 
traditional  prince  became  the  representative  man.  When  Shakes¬ 
peare  took  in  hand  the  character  of  Macbeth,  it  was  (in  the 
Holinshed  Chronicle)  a  tradition  of  individual  ambition  and  cru¬ 
elty;  but  from  him  it  was  to  get  a  world  of  purpose  that  should 
make  it  typical  of  a  vast  section  of  humanity.  In  order  to  real¬ 
ize  how  exactly  Hamlet  and  Macbeth  are  of  opposite  types,  let 
us  glance  at  one  scene  from  each  of  the  plays  in  question.  Im¬ 
mediately  after  the  play  in  <(  Hamlet, w  the  guilty  king,  whose  con¬ 
science  has  been  caught  by  the  trap  laid  for  it,  retires  to  a 
chamber  to  pray.  Hamlet  is  now  convinced  of  his  uncle’s  guilt; 
he  will  take  the  word  of  the  ghost  for  a  thousand  pounds;  in 
the  heat  of  his  resolve  he  believes  he  could  drink  hot  blood,  his 
purpose  is  so  firm  that  he  prays  that  the  soul  of  Nero  may  not 
enter  into  his  bosom,  and  that  to  his  mother,  at  least,  he  may 
speak  daggers,  but  use  none.  In  this  crowning  witness  of  the 
justice  of  the  act  he  contemplates,  he  shrieks  frantic  and  bitter 
doggerel.  He  is  summoned  to  his  mother’s  chamber,  and  on  the 
way  thither  he  passes  through  the  room  where  the  stubborn 
knees  of  the  king  are  bent  in  the  prayer  that  is  meant  to  purge 
the  black  bosom  of  its  rank  offense.  *Now  might  Hamlet  do  the 
deed  his  soul  is  bent  on;  but  no,  the  king  prays,  and  Hamlet 
dares  not  to  raise  the  sword  against  him.  Would  not  the  mur¬ 
derer  go  to  heaven  if  taken  in  this  purging  of  his  soul  ?  Here 
creeps  in  Hamlet’s  apology  to  himself  for  doing  nothing,  and  he 
goes  out  again,  his  purpose  shaken  and  undone.  Contrast  this 
conduct  of  Hamlet  with  that  of  Macbeth  at  a  juncture  no  less 
terrible.  After  he  has  murdered  Duncan,  and  possessed  himself 
of  the  sovereignty,  he  is  more  than  ever  tossed  about  with  fears. 
He  cannot  sleep;  he  has  murdered  the  innocent  asleep;  he 
thinks  it  were  better  to  be  with  the  dead,  whom  he  has  sent  to 
rest,  than  to  lie  upon  the  rack  of  a  tortured  mind.  Duncan  is 
in  his  grave.  After  life’s  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well.  Banquo 
is  dead,  but  Fleance  has  escaped,  and  Macbeth’s  fears  stick  deep 
in  Banquo’s  issue.  He  will  seek  afresh  the  Weird  Sisters,  and  so 
goes  to  the  pit  of  Acheron.  Small  comfort  he  gets  there,  the 
secret,  black,  and  midnight  hags  show  him  apparitions  that  fore¬ 
tell  his  speedy  overthrow;  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six,  seven, 
eight  kings  pass  before  his  eyes,  and  the  last  bears  a  glass  in 
hand  that  shows  him  many  more.  He  curses  the  witches; 


HALL  CAINE 


809 


infected  be  the  air  whereon  they  ride,  and  damned  all  those  that 
trust  them !  But  what  is  the  result  ?  Does  Macbeth  arrest  him¬ 
self  in  his  deeds  of  blood  ?  A  hundreth  part  of  such  an  evidence 
against  him  would  have  seemed  to  Hamlet  excuse  enough  for 
ignoring  the  <(  canon  ’gainst  self-slaughter.®  Macbeth  is  of  an¬ 
other  mettle;  he  is  so  far  steeped  in  blood  that  to  go  backward 
were  as  hard  as  to  go  on.  This  is  what  he  says  as  he  comes 
out  of  the  cave :  — 

(<  Time,  thou  anticipate  my  dread  exploits; 

The  flighty  purpose  never  is  o’ertook 

Unless  the  deed  go  with  it;  from  this  moment 

The  very  firstlings  of  my  heart  shall  be 

The  firstlings  of  my  hand.  And  even  now 

To  crown  my  thoughts  with  acts,  be  it  thought  and  done. 

The  castle  of  Macduff  I  will  surprise; 

Seize  upon  Fife;  give  to  the  edge  o’  the  sword 
His  wife,  his  babes,  and  all  unfortunate  souls 
That  trace  his  line.  No  boasting,  like  a  fool; 

This  deed  I’ll  do,  before  this  purpose  cool: 

But  no  more  sights ! ® 

<(  But  no  more  sights !  *  This  man  can  do  any  deed  of  horrible 
cruelty,  but  he  cannot  now,  he  will  not,  think;  he  will  not  count 
the  cost.  By  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event,  Hamlet’s  pur¬ 
poses  lost  the  name  of  action.  Hamlet’s  flighty  purpose  never 
was  overtaken  (it  may  be  said  to  have  overtaken  him),  because 
the  deed  never  did  go  with  it.  Hamlet  could  look  on  thoughts, 
but  not  on  blood;  Macbeth  could  look  on  blood,  but  not  on 
thoughts.  Macduff’s  wife  and  little  ones  Macbeth  could  cruelly 
butcher  in  <(  one  fell  swoop,  ®  but  he  could  not,  would  not,  look 
on  the  future.  <(  This  deed  I’ll  do,®  he  says,  <l  but  no  more 
sights!®  Here,  then,  we  have  two  types  of  character:  the  man 
that  can  think  and  will  not  act,  and  the  man  that  can  act  and 
will  not  think;  and  these  together  represent,  perhaps,  a  full  half 
of  the  entire  human  family.  In  the  one  we  have  the  dread  of 
action  which  never  fails  to  present  itself  in  the  meditative  genius; 
in  the  other  we  have  the  impatience  of  brooding  reflection  which 
as  constantly  exhibits  itself  in  the  active  intelligence.  Hamlet 
envies  Laertes,  fresh  from  France,  the  good  opinion  he  has  won 
for  skill  with  rapier  and  dagger,  but  despises  Rosencrantz,  who, 
straight,  probably  from  Wittenberg,  talks  metaphysics  to  him;  he 
is  never  so  satisfied  with  himself  as  when  he  recalls  his  speedy 


8io 


HALL  CAINE 


dispatch  of  his  base  companions  to  sudden  and  unshriven  death 
in  England,  and  never  so  strong  in  his  own  strength  of  arm  as 
when  he  reflects  that  the  news  must  shortly  reach  the  king  of 
the  issue  of  the  business  in  his  tributary  state  <(  It  will  be 
short:  the  interim  is  mine. ®  Macbeth  reserves  no  pity  in  his 
heart  for  the  partner  of  his  great  crime,  when,  tortured  by  the 
memory  of  it,  she  dies  of  remorse,  and  it  adds  one  more  anticipa¬ 
tory  pang  to  the  humiliation  of  possible  overthrow,  that  he  may 
*have  to  kiss  the  dust  before  the  feet  of  young  Malcolm  (who  has 
never  given  proof  of  active  power),  while  before  the  resolute  Mac¬ 
duff  the  relentless  monarch  quails 

Let  us  look  at  Othello.  The  Moor  of  Venice  was  a  figure  in 
Cinthio’s  a  Hecatomithi )}  before  Shakespeare  began  to  deal  with 
him;  but  he  was,  as  the  facetious  Rymer  so  playfully  puts  it,  a 
mere  jealous  blackamoor.  The  black  generals  having  beautiful 
wives  liable  to  be  courted  by  their  husbands9  officers  are  neces¬ 
sarily  few.  One  in  a  century  would  be  a  liberal  estimate,  prob¬ 
ably,  and  perhaps  one  in  a  cycle  would  be  enough.  Therefore 
the  interest  attaching  to  such  unions  must  be  slight.  A  passion 
must  touch  a  large  part  of  humanity  before  it  can  be  universally 
appreciated.  Now  see  what  marvelous  re-creation  the  story  un¬ 
dergoes  in  Shakespeare,  and  what  a  magnificent  type  the  poet 
makes  of  Othello.  Lifting  him  entirely  out  of  the  originally  vul¬ 
gar  character  of  the  black  man  with  a  fair  wife,  he  makes  him  a 
perfect  gentleman.  It  has  been  well  said  that  Othello  is,  per¬ 
haps,  the  most  faultless  gentleman  in  Shakespeare,  for  not  Ham¬ 
let  himself  is  so  peerless  a  gentleman.  What  is  Shakespeare’s 
aim  in  this  ?  He  is  going  to  do  far  greater  business  than  to 
show  us  the  power  of  jealousy.  Cinthio’s  original  blackamoor 
would  have  done  for  that.  He  intends  to  show  us  what  it  is  to 
have  our  ideals  shattered,  our  gods  overthrown,  our  hopes  with¬ 
ered,  our  aims  blasted.  Othello  shall  have  no  touch  of  jealousy; 
he  shall  have  a  greatness  of  soul  with  which  jealousy  cannot  live. 
Othello  at  first  adores  his  wife,  worships  her  beyond  all  limit  or 
control  of  reason.  Then  comes  up  the  spirit  of  envy.  Iago 
whispers  that  his  fair  idol  is  not  so  flawless  as  he  thinks.  He 
laughs  at  the  imputation.  Presently,  that  old  relentless  enemy, 
Circumstance  (the  vis  matrix  of  Shakespearean  tragedy,  as  a  critic 
most  aptly  terms  her)  steps  in  and  mars  everything,  as  she  so 
often  does.  When  Circumstance  frowns  on  Desdemona,  Othello 
is  trapped.  Can  it  be  that  she  whom  he  thought  so  pure  is  yet 


HALL  CAINE 


8il 


so  guilty  ?  <(  But  yet  the  pity  of  ’t !  O  Iago,  the  pity  of ’t !  *  Of 
what  now  is  Othello  thinking  ?  Of  killing  his  supposed  rival  I 
Never  at  all;  that  way  jealousy  lies.  He  thinks  of  killing  her 
slanderer.  Holding  Iago  by  the  throat,  he  tells  him  to  prove 
what  he  has  said,  or  he  had  better  have  been  born  a  dog  than 
answer  his  awakened  wrath.  But  fate  is  against  Othello,  and  the 
proof  seems  to  be  forthcoming.  Then,  indeed,  the  joys  of  life  are 
gone;  his  advancements  had  been  the  sweeter,  because  she  had 
shared  them;  his  hairbreadth  ’scapes  had  been  no  longer  terrible 
memories,  because  she  had  pitied  them.  Desdemona  must  die, 
and  he,  too,  with  her;  for  surely  we  must  believe  that  Othello 
projected  his  own  death  at  the  moment  that  he  conceived  the 
idea  of  compassing  his  wife’s.  Here,  then,  is  another  magnificent 
type,  representative  of  an  enormous  section  of  the  human  family. 
Othello  has  all  the  weaknesses  of  the  man  who  builds  his  ideals 
too  high:  distrustful  of  himself  and  of  the  passion  he  generates; 
too  quick  to  suspect  treachery  for  one  who  has  none  of  the  little 
vices  that  verify  it;  as  apt  to  clutch  at  straws  as  he  is  swift  to 
raise  an  idol  out  of  slender  virtues.  If  Othello  had  been  a  jeal¬ 
ous  man  he  would  not  have  killed  his  wife;  for  he  would  never 
have  contented  himself  with  the  evidence  of  a  lost  handkerchief. 
But  he  was  at  once  superior  to  the  mean,  prying  suspiciousness 
of  Leontes,  in  the  <(  Winter’s  Tale,”  and  rendered,  by  his  frantic 
idolatry,  so  destitute  of  a  rational  idea  of  female  frailty  as  to 
accept  the  most  innocent  intercourse  as  conclusive  evidence  of 
guilt. 

The  character  of  Iago  is  of  a  type  the  exact  contrary  of  this. 
Iago  represents  the  men  who  take  a  low  view  of  humanity,  be¬ 
lieving  there  is  no  friendship  but  self-interest,  no  affection  but 
self-love,  no  honesty  but  personal  gain.  He  begins  with  the 
meanest  estimate  of  woman,  from  whom  he  expects  neither  chas¬ 
tity  nor  constancy,  and  whose  love,  in  his  eyes,  is  lust.  There  is 
not  to  be  seen  so  bitter  an  enemy  of  woman  in  any  other  char¬ 
acter  in  Shakespeare,  where  the  hardest  things  ever,  perhaps,  said 
against  the  sex  are  to  be  found.  Iago  has  a  stubborn  pride  of 
intellectuality,  too,  that  makes  him  believe  he  can  use  all  men  as 
his  tools.  His  envy  is  not  limited  to  Michael  Cassio,  who  stands 
between  him  and  a  lieutenancy,  but  is  even  more  active  in  the 
si^it  of  Othello’s  domestic  happiness  than  in  view  of  his  own 
military  retrogression.  With  the  consciousness  of  villainy  in  every 
scheme  he  concocts,  he  is  constantly  hugging  to  his  bosom  the 
idea  that  what  he  does  is  less  than  the  just  revenge  of  his  honor, 


8l2 


HALL  CAINE 


which  he  reminds  himself  has  been  outraged.  In  no  man  what¬ 
ever,  and  of  course  in  no  woman,  can  he  perceive  positive  vir¬ 
tues;  in  Othello  alone  he  recognizes  a  certain  absence  of  vice. 
Such  a  man  must  needs  have  injured  his  associates  by  suspicion, 
calumny,  or  some  of  the  other  and  secret  machinations  of  envy; 
and  if  Shakespeare  meant  anything  (beyond  furnishing  a  dramatic 
contrast  to  Othello)  by  the  realization  of  the  type  which  Iago 
represents,  it  was  surely  to  point  to  the  inevitable  pitfalls  that 
lie  in  the  path  of  the  born  skeptic. 

Lear,  again,  is  of  a  great  and  familiar  type;  he  furnishes  an 
admirable  generalization  on  the  impotence  of  those,  who,  in  their 
anxiety  to  govern  others,  have  neglected  to  master  themselves. 
It  is  significant  that,  both  in  Holinshed  and  in  (<The  True  Chron¬ 
icle  History  of  King  Leir,”  the  army  of  Lear  is  victorious,  and 
the  king  is  reinstated  in  his  kingdom.  After  Lear’s  death,  too, 
Cordelia  succeeds  to  his  sovereignty,  and  dies  by  her  own  hand 
during  a  war  waged  against  her  by  her  sisters’  sons.  Now,  the 
mere  necessities  of  tragic  drama  made  demand  of  radical  change 
in  certain  of  these  particulars;  but  the  most  material  deviation 
from  the  story,  as  Shakespeare  found  it,  was  entailed  upon  the 
dramatist  by  the  necessity  under  which  he  lay  to  purge  the  old 
king  of  his  pride  and  willfulness,  by  leading  him  forward  to  some 
great  catastrophe  of  suffering  and  death.  Gloucester  and  his 
sons  are  foreign  to  the  chronicle  on  which  this  play  is  founded, 
and  come,  no  doubt,  from  Sidney’s  <(  Arcadia, *  probably  being 
introduced  for  precisely  similar  purposes  of  typical  portraiture. 
Indeed,  it  may,  I  think,  safely  be  said  that  wherever  Shakespeare 
departs  from  tradition  in  his  plots  he  does  so  to  perfect  his  types. 

Glance  further  at  the  boy-woman  characters  in  Shakespeare: 
I  mean,  of  course,  the  women  who  assume  the  disguise  of  pages. 
This  is  a  class  of  character  of  which  the  Elizabethans  were  es¬ 
pecially  fond.  Nearly  every  popular  dramatist  of  Shakespeare’s 
age  introduces  us  to  one  or  more  of  these  charming  creations. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  objected  that  the  class,  if  it  ever  existed,  is 
extinct.  And  this  being  so,  it  may  be  said  that  Shakespeare  here 
reversed  his  usual  methods  of  portraiture  and  presented  us  in  his 
Rosalinds  and  Violas,  not  with  a  type  of  female  character,  but 
merely  with  a  picture  of  a  class  that  was,  at  the  most,  peculiar 
to  his  own  and  earlier  times.  Not  so,  however.  Shakespeare 
created  in  his  girl-page  characters  a  type  of  womanhood  which 
for  purity  and  strength,  for  modesty  and  self-sacrifice,  must  al¬ 
ways  stand  highest  in  fiction,  and  can  never,  one  may  trust,  be 


HALL  CAINE 


813 

extinct  in  life.  Herein  he  introduces  into  literature  the  type  of 
girl  who  unites  the  tenderness  of  a  woman  to  the  strength  of  a 
man;  and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  most  fascinating  type  of  female 
character  ever  conceived.  Yet  Shakespeare  never  unsexes  his 
boy-women.  Viola  is  not  a  whit  less  womanly  because  she  dons 
the  doublet  and  hose,  and  plays  page  to  the  Duke.  Nay,  for  her 
very  disguise  she  seems  almost  the  more  womanly,  because  the 
more  under  restraint  in  the  expression  of  those  emotions  which 
belong  to  woman  only. 

It  is  necessary  to  leave  such  readers  as  feel  an  interest  in 
this  theory  of  Shakespeare’s  method  as  a  dramatist  to  work  it 
out  in  fuller  detail.  It  would  be  interesting  to  pursue  investiga¬ 
tions  further,  and  see  how  Shakespeare  came  by  such  characters 
as  Polonius,  Benedick,  Beatrice,  Mercutio,  Dogberry,  Verges,  Jus¬ 
tice  Shallow,  Prospero,  Leonatus,  and  among  historical  personages, 
Henry  V.,  Richards  II.  and  III.  What  has  here  been  said  has 
been  intended  to  show,  with  somewhat  more  fullness  of  illustra¬ 
tion  than  Coleridge  employs,  that  Shakespeare’s  method  of  pro¬ 
jecting  character  was  to  generalize  on  character:  not  to  reproduce 
individuals,  but  to  create  types.  That  the  poet  never  paints  a 
character  direct  from  some  single  example  in  life  can  hardly  be 
maintained.  It  has  been  said  that  Pistol  is  a  portrait,  and  per¬ 
haps  the  same  may  be  affirmed,  with  reason,  of  Justice  Shallow 
and  Dogberry.  The  opposite  was,  however,  his  natural  method, 
and  the  exceptions  to  his  adoption  of  it  are  rare.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  tabulate  his  types  in  groups,  and  so  note  their  si¬ 
militudes  and  differences.  Lear,  Timon,  and  Coriolanus  might  be 
taken  together  in  a  first  group;  Hamlet,  Richard  II.,  and  Pros¬ 
pero  in  a  second;  Richard  III.  and  Macbeth  in  a  third;  and  per¬ 
haps  Leontes  and  Leonatus  would  have  to  go  with  Iago  rather 
than  with  Othello.  To  study  Shakespeare  in  such  groups  of 
types  might  perhaps  be  more  profitable,  because  more  systemat¬ 
ical  and  philosophical,  than  to  study  him  merely  chronologically. 
At  least  it  would  afford  an  agreeable  and  valuable  change.  It 
can  hardly  be  possible  to  overstate  the  importance  of  the  poet’s 
love  of  the  type  in  all  human  portraiture.  To  gratify  it  he  sac¬ 
rificed  legend  and  history,  and  sometimes  probability  also.  It  is 
quite  the  highest  factor  in  his  art,  for  it  has  given  permanence 
to  what  must  have  been  as  ephemeral  as  the  forgotten  chronicles 
without  it. 


8i4 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 

(1777-1844) 

he  poet  Campbell  was  the  editor  of  the  New  Monthly  Maga¬ 
zine  and  of  the  Metropolitan,  but  it  is  to  his  work  as 
editor  of  <(  Specimens  of  the  British  Poets”  that  we  owe  his 
essay  on  Chatterton, —  almost  the  only  one  of  his  shorter  prose  pieces 
which  has  not  dropped  out  of  circulation.  His  work  as  a  poet  was 
of  the  highest  importance  to  English  literature  in  helping  to  renew 
the  lyrical  impulse  which  in  the  eighteenth  century  it  had  almost 
lost.  An  Englishman  in  his  diction,  Campbell  was  Scotch  in  his  ear 
for  melody.  His  longer  poems  are  under  the  influence  of  the  formal¬ 
ism  of  the  Queen  Anne  school,  but  in  his  lyrics  and  ballads  he  is 
thoroughly  natural,  and,  except  in  diction,  almost  as  Scotch  as  Burns 
himself.  His  lyrics  are  based  on  the  ear  for  music  which  is  more 
potent  than  the  best  tradition  of  any  school  of  art,  and  it  is  almost  im¬ 
possible  for  any  one  who  has  once  learned  them  to  forget  them.  He 
was  born  at  Glasgow,  July  27th,  1777.  At  Edinburgh  where  he  went 
to  attend  the  university,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Scott,  Brougham, 
and  Francis  Jeffrey,  who  were  valuable  friends  to  him  in  his  liter¬ 
ary  career.  « The  Pleasures  of  Hope,”  published  in  1799,  was  an 
instantaneous  success,  as  it  deserved  to  be  from  the  beauty  and  deli¬ 
cacy  which  characterize  its  conceptions.  It  lacks  the  artistic  sim¬ 
plicity  of  expression  which  gives  his  lyrics  their  remarkable  power, 
but  is  still  accepted  as  his  masterpiece  and  one  of  the  masterpieces 
of  English  poetry.  He  died  at  Boulogne,  June  15th,  1844. 


CHATTERTON’S  LIFE  TRAGEDY 

Thomas  Chatterton  was  the  posthumous  child  of  the  master 
of  a  free  school  in  Bristol.  At  five  years  of  age  he  was 
sent  to  the  same  school  which  his  father  had  taught,  but 
he  made  so  little  improvement  that  his  mother  took  him  back; 
nor  could  he  be  induced  to  learn  his  letters  till  his  attention  had 
been  accidentally  struck  by  the  illuminated  capitals  of  a  French 
musical  manuscript.  His  mother  afterwards  taught  him  to  read 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


8i5 

from  an  old  black-letter  Bible.  One  of  his  biographers  has  ex¬ 
pressed  surprise  that  a  person  in  his  mother’s  rank  of  life  should 
have  been  acquainted  with  black  letter.  The  writer  might  have 
known  that  books  of  the  ancient  type  continued  to  be  read  in 
that  rank  of  life  long  after  they  had  ceased  to  be  used  by  per¬ 
sons  of  higher  station.  At  the  age  of  eight  he  was  put  to  a 
charity  school  in  Bristol,  where  he  was  instructed  in  reading, 
writing,  and  arithmetic.  From  his  tenth  year  he  discovered  an 
extraordinary  passion  for  books,  and  before  he  was  twelve  had 
perused  about  seventy  volumes,  chiefly  on  history  and  divinity. 
The  prematurity  of  his  mind,  at  the  latter  period,  was  so  strongly 
marked  in  a  serious  and  religious  cast  of  thought  as  to  induce 
the  bishop  to  confirm  him,  and  admit  him  to  the  sacrament  at 
that  early  age.  His  piety,  however,  was  not  of  long  duration. 
He  had  also  written  some  verses  sufficiently  wonderful  for  his 
years,  and  had  picked  up  some  knowledge  of  music  and  drawing, 
when,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  was  bound  apprentice  to  a  Mr. 
Lambert,  a  scrivener,  in  his  native  city.  In  Mr.  Lambert’s  house 
his  situation  was  very  humble ;  he  ate  with  the  servants  and 
slept  in  the  same  room  with  the  footboy;  but  his  employment 
left  him  many  hours  of  leisure  for  reading,  and  these  he  devoted 
to  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  English  antiquities  and  obsolete 
language,  which,  together  with  his  poetical  ingenuity,  proved 
sufficient  for  his  Rowleian  fabrications. 

It  was  in  the  year  1768  that  he  first  attracted  attention.  On 
the  occasion  of  the  new  bridge  of  Bristol  being  opened,  he  sent 
to  Farley’s  Journal  in  that  city  a  letter  signed  <(  Dunhelmus  Bris- 
toliensis, })  containing  an  account  of  a  procession  of  friars,  and  of 
other  ceremonies  which  had  taken  place  at  a  remote  period,  when 
the  old  bridge  had  been  opened.  The  account  was  said  to  be 
taken  from  an  ancient  manuscript.  Curiosity  was  instantly  ex¬ 
cited,  and  the  sages  of  Bristol,  with  a  spirit  of  barbarism  which 
the  monks  and  friars  of  the  fifteenth  century  could  not  easily 
have  rivaled,  having  traced  the  letter  to  Chatterton,  interrogated 
him,  with  threats,  about  the  original.  Boy  as  he  was,  he  haught¬ 
ily  refused  to  explain  upon  compulsion,  but  by  milder  treatment 
was  brought  to  state  that  he  had  found  the  manuscript  in  his 
mother’s  house.  The  true  part  of  the  history  of  those  ancient 
papers,  from  which  he  pretended  to  have  derived  this  original  of 
Farley’s  letter,  as  well  as  his  subsequent  poetical  treasures,  was, 
that  in  the  muniment  rooms  of  St.  Mary  Redcliffe  Church,  of 


8i6 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


Bristol,  several  chests  had  been  anciently  deposited,  among  which 
was  one  called  the  <(  Cofre, ®  of  Mr.  Canynge,  an  eminent  mer¬ 
chant  of  Bristol,  who  had  rebuilt  the  church  in  the  reign  of  Ed¬ 
ward  IV.  About  the  year  1727  those  chests  had  been  broken 
open  by  an  order  from  proper  authority;  some  ancient  deeds  had 
been  taken  out,  and  the  remaining  manuscripts  left  exposed,  as 
of  no  value.  Chatterton’s  father,  whose  uncle  was  sexton  of  the 
church,  had  carried  off  great  numbers  of  the  parchments,  and 
had  used  them  as  covers  for  books  in  his  school.  Amidst  the 
residue  of  his  father’s  ravages,  Chatterton  gave  out  that  he  had 
found  many  writings  of  Mr.  Canynge,  and  of  Thomas  Rowley 
(the  friend  of  Canynge),  a  priest  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
rumor  of  the  discoveries  occasioned  his  acquaintance  to  be  sought 
by  a  few  individuals  of  Bristol,  to  whom  he  made  presents  of 
vellum  manuscripts  of  professed  antiquity.  The  first  who  applied 
to  him  was  a  Mr.  Calcot,  who  obtained  from  him  the  Bristowe 
Tragedy,  and  Rowley’s  Epitaph  on  Canynge’s  ancestor.  Mr. 
Barret,  a  surgeon,  who  was  writing  a  History  of  Bristol,  was  also 
presented  with  some  of  the  poetry  of  Rowley;  and  Mr.  Burgum, 
a  pewterer,  was  favored  with  the  <(  Romaunt  of  the  Knyghte,”  a 
poem,  said  by  Chatterton  to  have  been  written  by  the  pewterer’s 
ancestor,  John  de  Barghum,  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  years 
before.  The  believing  presentees,  in  return,  supplied  him  with 
small  sums  of  money,  lent  him  books,  and  introduced  him  into 
society.  Mr.  Barret  even  gave  him  a  few  slight  instructions  in 
his  own  profession.  Chatterton’s  spirit  and  ambition  perceptibly 
increased,  and  he  used  to  talk  to  his  mother  and  sisters  of  his 
prospects  of  fame  and  fortune,  always  promising  that  they  should 
be  partakers  in  his  success. 

Having  deceived  several  incompetent  judges  with  regard  to 
his  manuscripts,  he  next  ventured  to  address  himself  to  Horace 
Walpole,  to  whom  he  sent  a  letter,  offering  to  supply  him  with 
,an  account  of  a  series  of  eminent  painters  who  had  flourished  at 
Bristol.  Walpole  returned  a  polite  answer,  desiring  further  in¬ 
formation,  on  which  Chatterton  transmitted  to  him  some  of  his 
Rowleian  poetry,  described  his  own  servile  situation,  and  re¬ 
quested  the  patronage  of  his  correspondent.  The  virtuoso,  how¬ 
ever,  having  shown  the  poetical  specimens  to  Gray  and  Mason, 
who  pronounced  them  to  be  forgeries,  sent  the  youth  a  cold  re¬ 
ply,  advising  him  to  apply  to  the  business  of  his  profession. 
Walpole  set  out  soon  after  for  Paris,  and  neglected  to  return  the 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


817 


manuscripts  till  they  had  been  twice  demanded  back  by  Chatter- 
ton;  the  second  time  in  a  very  indignant  letter.  On  these  cir¬ 
cumstances  was  founded  the  whole  charge  that  was  brought  against 
Walpole,  of  blighting  the  prospects  and  eventually  contributing 
to  the  ruin  of  the  youthful  genius.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
of  some  expressions  respecting  Chatterton,  which  Walpole  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  explanation  of  the  affair  which  he  afterwards  pub¬ 
lished,  the  idea  of  taxing  him  with  criminality  in  neglecting  him 
was  manifestly  unjust.  But,  in  all  cases  of  misfortune,  the  first 
consolation  to  which  human  nature  resorts  is,  right  or  wrong,  to 
find  somebody  to  blame,  and  an  evil  seems  to  be  half  cured  when 
it  is  traced  to  an  object  of  indignation. 

In  the  meantime  Chatterton  had  commenced  a  correspondence 
with  the  Town  and  Country  Magazine  in  London,  to  which  he 
transmitted  several  communications  on  subjects  relating  to  Eng¬ 
lish  antiquities,  besides  his  specimens  of  Rowley’s  poetry,  and 
fragments,  purporting  to  be  translations  of  Saxon  poems,  written 
in  the  measured  prose  of  Macpherson’s  style.  His  poetical  talent 
also  continued  to  develop  itself  in  several  pieces  of  verse,  avowedly 
original,  though  in  a  manner  less  pleasing  than  in  his  feigned 
relics  of  the  Gothic  Muse.  When  we  conceive  the  inspired  boy 
transporting  himself  in  imagination  back  to  the  days  of  his  ficti¬ 
tious  Rowley,  embodying  his  ideal  character  and  <(  giving  to  airy 
nothings  a  local  habitation  and  a  name,®  we  may  forget  the  im¬ 
postor  in  the  enthusiast,  and  forgive  the  falsehood  of  his  reverie 
for  its  beauty  and  ingenuity.  One  of  his  companions  has  de¬ 
scribed  the  air  of  rapture  and  inspiration  with  which  he  used  to 
repeat  his  passages  from  Rowley,  and  the  delight  which  he  took 
to  contemplate  the  church  of  St.  Mary  Redcliffe,  while  it  awoke 
the  associations  of  antiquity  in  his  romantic  mind.  There  was 
one  spot  in  particular,  full  in  view  of  the  church,  where  he  would 
often  lay  himself  down,  and  fix  his  eyes,  as  it  were,  in  a  trance. 
On  Sundays,  as  long  as  daylight  lasted,  he  would  walk  alone  in 
the  country  around  Bristol,  taking  drawings  of  churches  or  other 
objects  that  struck  his  imagination.  The  romance  of  his  charac¬ 
ter  is  somewhat  disenchanted,  when  we  find  him,  in  his  satire  of 
(<  Kew  Gardens,  ®  which  he  wrote  before  leaving  Bristol,  indulg¬ 
ing  in  the  vulgar  scandal  of  the  day  upon  the  characters  of  the 
Princess  Dowager  of  Wales  and  Lord  Bute,  whatever  proofs  such 
a  production  may  afford  of  the  quickness  and  versatility  of  his 

talents, 
n— 52 


8i8 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


As  he  had  not  exactly  followed  Horace  Walpole’s  advice  with 
regard  to  molding  his  inclinations  to  business,  he  felt  the  irk¬ 
someness  of  his  situation  in  Mr.  Lambert’s  office  at  last  intoler¬ 
able,  and  he  vehemently  solicited  and  obtained  the  attorney’s 
consent  to  release  him  from  his  apprenticeship.  His  master  is  * 
said  to  have  been  alarmed  into  this  concession  by  the  hints  which 
Chatterton  gave  of  his  intention  to  destroy  himself;  but  even 
without  this  fear,  Mr.  Lambert  could  have  no  great  motive  to 
detain  so  reluctant  an  apprentice  from  the  hopes  of  his  future 
services. 

In  the  month  of  April,  1770,  Chatterton  arrived  in  London, 
aged  seventeen  years  and  five  months.  He  immediately  received 
from  the  booksellers,  with  whom  he  had  already  corresponded, 
several  important  literary  engagements.  He  projected  a  History 
of  England  and  a  History  of  London,  wrote  for  the  maga¬ 
zines  and  newspapers,  and  contributed  songs  for  the  public  gar¬ 
dens.  But  party  politics  soon  became  his  favorite  object,  as  they 
flattered  his  self-importance,  and  were  likely  to  give  the  most 
lucrative  employment  to  his  pen.  His  introduction  to  one  or 
two  individuals,  who  noticed  him  on  this  account,  seems  to  have 
filled  his  ardent  and  sanguine  fancy  with  unbounded  prospects  of 
success.  Among  these  acquaintances  was  the  Lord  Mayor,  Beck- 
ford,  and  it  is  not  unlikely,  if  that  magistrate  had  not  died  soon 
after,  that  Chatterton  might  have  found  a  patron.  His  death, 
however,  and  a  little  experience,  put  an  end  to  the  young  adven¬ 
turer’s  hopes  of  making  his  fortune  by  writing  in  hostility  to 
government;  and  with  great  accommodation  of  principle  he  ad¬ 
dressed  a  letter  to  Lord  North,  in  praise  of  his  administration. 
There  was,  perhaps,  more  levity  than  profligacy  in  this  tergiver¬ 
sation,  though  it  must  be  owned  that  it  was  not  the  levity  of  an 
ingenuous  boy. 

During  the  few  months  of  his  existence  in  London,  his  letters 
to  his  mother  and  sister,  which  were  always  accompanied  with 
presents,  expressed  the  most  joyous  anticipations.  But  suddenly 
all  the  flush  of  his  gay  hopes  and  busy  projects  terminated  in 
despair.  The  particular  causes  which  led  to  his  catastrophe  have 
not  been  distinctly  traced.  His  own  descriptions  of  his  prospects 
were  but  little  to  be  trusted;  for,  while  apparently  exchanging 
his  shadowy  visions  of  Rowley  for  the  real  adventures  of  life,  he 
was  still  moving  under  the  spell  of  an  imagination  that  saw 
everything  in  exaggerated  colors.  Out  of  this  dream  he  was  at 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


819 

length  awakened,  when  he  found  that  he  had  miscalculated  the 
chances  of  patronage  and  the  profits  of  literary  labor.  The  abor¬ 
tive  attempt  which  he  made  to  obtain  the  situation  of  a  surgeon’s 
mate  on  board  an  African  vessel  shows  that  he  had  abandoned 
the  hopes  of  gaining  a  livelihood  by  working  for  the  booksellers, 
though  he  was  known  to  have  shrewdly  remarked  that  they  were 
not  the  worst  patrons  of  merit  After  this  disappointment  his 
poverty  became  extreme,  and  though  there  is  an  account  of  a 
gentleman  having  sent  him  a  guinea  within  the  last  few  days 
of  his  life,  yet  there  is  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  the  pangs 
of  his  voluntary  death  were  preceded  by  the  actual  sufferings  of 
want  Mrs.  Angel,  a  sack-maker,  in  Brook  Street,  Holborn,  in 
whose  house  he  lodged,  offered  him  a  dinner  the  day  before  his 
death,  knowing  that  he  had  fasted  a  long  time;  but  his  pride 
made  him  refuse  it  with  some  indignation.  On  the  twenty-fifth 
of  August  he  was  found  dead  in  his  bed,  from  the  effects  of  poi¬ 
son  which  he  had  swallowed.  He  was  interred  in  a  shell  in  the 
burial  ground  of  Shoe  Lane  workhouse. 

The  heart  which  can  peruse  the  fate  of  Chatterton  without 
being  moved  is  little  to  be  envied  for  its  tranquillity;  but  the  in¬ 
tellects  of  those  men  must  be  as  deficient  as  their  hearts  are  un¬ 
charitable,  who,  confounding  all  shades  of  moral  distinction,  have 
ranked  his  literary  fiction  of  Rowley  in  the  same  class  of  crimes 
with  pecuniary  forgery,  and  have  calculated  that  if  he  had  not 
died  by  his  own  hand,  he  would  have  probably  ended  his  days 
upon  a  gallows  This  disgusting  sentence  has  been  pronounced 
upon  a  youth  who  was  exemplary  for  severe  study,  temperance, 
and  natural  affection.  His  Rowleian  forgery  must  indeed  be  pro¬ 
nounced  improper  by  the  general  law  which  condemns  all  falsifi¬ 
cations  of  history;  but  it  deprived  no  man  of  his  fame,  it  had  no 
sacrilegious  interference  with  the  memory  of  departed  genius,  it 
had  not,  like  Lauder’s  imposture,  any  malignant  motive,  to  rob  a 
party,  or  a  country,  of  a  name  which  was  its  pride  and  ornament. 

Setting  aside  the  opinion  of  those  uncharitable  biographers 
whose  imaginations  have  conducted  him  to  the  gibbet,  it  may  be 
owned  that  his  unformed  character  exhibited  strong  and  conflict¬ 
ing  elements  of  good  and  evil.  Even  the  momentary  project  of 
the  infidel  boy  to  become  a  Methodist  preacher  betrays  an  ob- 
.  liquity  of  design,  and  a  contempt  of  human  credulity,  that  is  not 
very  amiable.  But  had  he  been  spared,  his  pride  and  ambition 
would  have  come  to  flow  in  their  proper  channels;  his  under- 


820 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


standing  would  have  taught  him  the  practical  value  of  truth  and 
the  dignity  of  virtue,  and  he  would  have  despised  artifice  when 
he  had  felt  the  strength  and  security  of  wisdom.  In  estimating 
the  promises  of  his  genius,  I  would  rather  lean  to  the  utmost 
enthusiasm  of  his  admirers,  than  to  the  cold  opinion  of  those 
who  are  afraid  of  being  blinded  to  the  defects  of  the  poems  at¬ 
tributed  to  Rowley,  by  the  veil  of  obsolete  phraseology  which  is 
thrown  over  them.  If  we  look  to  the  ballad  of  Sir  Charles  Baw- 
din,  and  translate  it  into  modern  English,  we  shall  find  its  strength 
and  interest  to  have  no  dependence  on  obsolete  words.  In  the 
striking  passage  of  the  martyr  Bawdin  standing  erect  in  his  car 
to  rebuke  Edward,  who  beheld  him  from  the  window,  when 

(<  The  tyrant’s  soul  rushed  to  his  face, ® 
and  when  he  exclaimed, 

<(  Behold  the  man !  he  speaks  the  truth, 

He’s  greater  than  a  king ; 9 

in  these,  and  in  all  the  striking  parts  of  the  ballad,  no  effect  is 
owing  to  mock  antiquity,  but  to  the  simple  and  high  conception 
of  a  great  and  just  character,  who 

<(Summ’d  the  actions  of  the  day, 

Each  night  before  he  slept.  ® 

What  a  moral  portraiture  from  the  hand  of  a  boy!  The  inequal¬ 
ity  of  Chatterton’s  various  productions  may  be  compared  to  the 
disproportions  of  the  ungrown  giant.  His  works  had  nothing  of 
the  definite  neatness  of  that  precocious  talent  which  stops  short 
in  early  maturity.  His  thirst  for  knowledge  was  that  of  a  being 
taught  by  instinct  to  lay  up  materials  for  the  exercise  of  great 
and  undeveloped  powers.  Even  in  his  favorite  maxim,  pushed  it 
might  be  to  hyperbole,  that  a  man  by  abstinence  and  pel  sever¬ 
ance  might  accomplish  whatever  he  pleased,  may  be  traced  the 
indications  of  a  genius  which  nature  had  meant  to  achieve  works 
of  immortality.  Tasso  alone  can  be  compared  to  him  as  a  juv¬ 
enile  prodigy.  No  English  poet  ever  equaled  him  at  the  same 
age. 


From  «  Specimens  of  the  British  Poets. » 


821 


WILLIAM  CARLETON 

(1794-1869) 

n  some  of  his  Irish  sketches,  William  Carleton  illustrates  ad¬ 
mirably  the  class  of  essays  which  depend  on  incident  or 
description,  and  are  really  intermediate  between  the  essay 
proper  and  the  tale.  In  writing  these  he  had  the  authority  and  the 
example  of  Steele  and  Addison,  but  he  succeeded  so  well  on  his  own 
account  that  his  <(  Traits  and  Stories  of  the  Irish  Peasantry *  was 
an  immediate  success.  He  was  born  in  County  Tyrone,  Ireland,  in 
1794,  and  gained  from  his  father  and  mother,  both  peasants,  his  love 
for  native  Irish  stories  and  music  which  gave  him  his  bent  and  his 
success.  He  published  several  meritorious  and  successful  novels,  but 
his  reputation  depends  chiefly  on  his  <(  Traits  and  Stories. ®  He  died 
in  Dublin,  January  30th,  1869. 


A  GLIMPSE  OF  IRISH  LIFE 

The  village  of  Findamore  was  situated  at  the  foot  of  a  long 
green  hill,  the  outline  of  which  formed  a  low  arch  as  it  rose 
to  the  eye  against  the  horizon  This  hill  was  studded  with 
clumps  of  beeches,  and  sometimes  inclosed  as  a  meadow.  In  the 
month  of  July,  when  the  grass  on  it  was  long,  many  an  hour 
have  I  spent  in  solitary  enjoyment,  watching  the  wavy  motion 
produced  on  its  pliant  surface  by  the  sunny  winds,  or  the  flight 
of  the  cloud  shadows,  like  gigantic  phantoms,  as  they  swept 
rapidly  over  it,  whilst  the  murmur  of  the  rocking  trees,  and  the 
glaring  of  their  bright  leaves  in  the  sun,  produced  a  heartfelt 
pleasure,  the  very  memory  of  which  rises  in  my  imagination  like 
some  fading  recollection  of  a  brighter  world. 

At  the  foot  of  this  hill  ran  a  clear,  deep-banked  river,  bounded 
on  one  side  by  a  slip  of  rich  level  meadow,  and  on  the  other  by 
a  kind  of  common  for  the  village  geese,  whose  white  feathers 
during  the  summer  season  lay  scattered  over  its  green  surface. 
It  was  also  the  playground  for  the  boys  of  the  village  school;  for 


822 


WILLIAM  CARLETON 


there  ran  that  part  of  the  river  which,  with  very  correct  judg¬ 
ment,  the  urchins  had  selected  as  their  bathing  place.  A  little 
slope  or  watering  ground  in  the  bank  brought  them  to  the  edge 
of  the  stream,  where  the  bottom  fell  away  into  the  fearful  depths 
of  the  whirlpool  under  the  hanging  oak  on  the  other  bank.  Well 
do  I  remember  the  first  time  I  ventured  to  swim  across  it,  and 
even  yet  do  I  see  in  imagination  the  two  bunches  of  water  flags 
on  which  the  inexperienced  swimmers  trusted  themselves  in  the 
water. 

About  two  hundred  yards  above  this,  the  boreen ,  which  led 
from  the  village  to  the  main  road,  crossed  the  river  by  one  of 
those  old  narrow  bridges  -whose  arches  rise  like  round  ditches 
across  the  road — an  almost  impassable  barrier  to  horse  and  car. 
On  passing  the  bridge  in  a  northern  direction,  you  found  a  range 
of  low  thatched  houses  on  each  side  of  the  road;  and  if  one 
o’clock,  the  hour  of  dinner,  drew  near,  you  might  observe  col¬ 
umns  of  blue  smoke  curling  up  from  a  row  of  chimneys,  some 
made  of  wicker  creels  plastered  over  with  a  rich  coat  of  mud, 
some  of  old,  narrow,  bottomless  tubs,  and  others,  with  a  greater 
appearance  of  taste,  ornamented  with  thick  circular  ropes  of 
straw,  sewed  together  like  bees’  skeps  with  the  peel  of  a  brier; 
and  many  having  nothing  but  the  open  vent  above.  But  the 
smoke  by  no  means  escaped  by  its  legitimate  aperture,  for  you 
might  observe  little  clouds  of  it  bursting  out  of  the  doors  and 
windows.  The  panes  of  the  latter,  being  mostly  stopped  at  other 
times  with  old  hats  and  rags,  were  now  left  entirely  open  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  it  a  free  escape. 

Before  the  doors,  on  right  and  left,  was  a  series  of  dunghills, 
each  with  its  concomitant  sink  of  green,  rotten  water;  and  if  it 
happened  that  a  stout-looking  woman,  with  watery  eyes,  and  a 
yellow  cap  hung  loosely  upon  her  matted  locks,  came  with  a 
chubby  urchin  on  one  arm,  and  a  pot  of  dirty  water  in  her  hand, 
its  unceremonious  ejection  in  the  aforesaid  sink  would  be  apt  to 
send  you  up  the  village,  with  your  forefinger  and  thumb  (for 
what  purpose  you  would  yourself  perfectly  understand)  closely, 
but  not  knowingly,  applied  to  your  nostrils.  But,  independently 
of  this,  you  would  be  apt  to  have  other  reasons  for  giving  your 
horse,  whose  heels  are  by  this  time  surrounded  by  a  dozen  of 
barking  curs  and  the  same  number  of  shouting  urchins,  a  pretty 
sharp  touch  of  the  spurs,  as  well  as  for  complaining  bitterly  of 
the  odor  of  the  atmosphere.  It  is  no  landscape  without  figures; 


WILLIAM  CARLETON 


823 


and  you  might  notice  —  if  you  are,  as  I  suppose  you  to  be,  a 
man  of  observation  —  in  every  sink  as  you  pass  along,  a  <(slip  of 
a  pig®  stretched  in  the  middle  of  the  mud,  the  very  beau-ideal 
of  luxury,  giving  occasionally  a  long,  luxuriant  grunt,  highly  ex¬ 
pressive  of  his  enjoyment;  or  perhaps  an  old  farrower,  lying  in 
indolent  repose,  with  half  a  dozen  young  ones  jostling  each  other 
for  their  draught,  and  punching  her  with  their  little  snouts,  reck¬ 
less  of  the  fumes  they  are  creating;  whilst  the  loud  crow  of  the 
cock,  as  he  confidently  flaps  his  wings  on  his  own  dunghill,  gives 
the  warning  note  for  the  hour  of  dinner. 

As  you  advance,  you  will  also  perceive  several  faces  thrust 
out  of  the  doors,  and  rather  than  miss  a  sight  of  you,  a  gro¬ 
tesque  visage  peeping  by  a  short  cut  through  the  paneless  win¬ 
dows,  or  a  tattered  female  flying  to  snatch  up  her  urchin  that 
has  been  tumbling  itself  heels  up  in  the  dirt  on  the  road,  lest 
(<  the  gentleman’s  horse  might  ride  over  it  ® ;  and  if  you  happen 
to  look  behind,  you  may  observe  a  shaggy-headed  youth  in  tat¬ 
tered  frieze,  with  one  hand  thrust  indolently  in  his  breast,  stand¬ 
ing  at  the  door  in  conversation  with  the  inmates,  a  broad  grin 
of  sarcastic  ridicule  on  his  face,  in  the  act  of  breaking  a  joke  or 
two  on  yourself  or  your  horse;  or  perhaps  your  jaw  may  be 
saluted  with  a  lump  of  clay,  just  hard  enough  not  to  fall  asun¬ 
der  as  it  flies,  cast  by  some  ragged  gossoon  from  behind  a  hedge, 
who  squats  himself  in  a  ridge  of  corn  to  avoid  detection. 

Seated  upon  a  hob  at  the  door,  you  may  observe  a  toil-worn 
man,  without  coat  or  waistcoat,  his  red,  muscular,  sunburnt 
shoulder  peeping  through  the  remnant  of  a  shirt,  mending  his 
shoes  with  a  piece  of  twisted  flax,  called  a  lingel,  or  perhaps 
sewing  two  footless  stockings,  or  martyeens ,  to  his  coat,  as  a  sub¬ 
stitute  for  sleeves. 

In  the  gardens,  which  are  usually  fringed  with  nettles,  you 
will  see  a  solitary  laborer,  working  with  that  carelessness  and 
apathy  that  characterize  an  Irishman  when  he  labors  for  himself, 
leaning  upon  his  spade  to  look  after  you,  and  glad  of  any  excuse 
to  be  idle. 

The  houses,  however,  are  not  all  such  as  I  have  described  — 
far  from  it.  You  see  here  and  there,  between  the  more  humble 
cabins,  a  stout  comfortable-looking  farmhouse,  with  ornamental 
thatching  and  well-glazed  windows;  adjoining  to  which  is  a  hay- 
yard,  with  five  or  six  large  stacks  of  corn,  well  trimmed  and 
roped,  and  a  fine  yellow  weatherbeaten  old  hayrick,  half-cut, — 


824 


WILLIAM  CARLETON 


not  taking  into  account  twelve  or  thirteen  circular  strata  of 
stones  that  mark  out  the  foundations  on  which  others  had  been 
raised.  Neither  is  the  rich  smell  of  oaten  or  wheaten  bread, 
which  the  good  wife  is  baking  on  the  griddle,  unpleasant  to 
your  nostrils;  nor  would  the  bubbling  of  a  large  pot,  in  which 
you  might  see,  should  you  chance  to  enter,  a  prodigious  square 
of  fat,  yellow,  and  almost  transparent  bacon  tumbling  about,  be 
an  unpleasant  object;  truly,  as  it  hangs  over  a  large  fire,  with 
well-swept  hearthstone,  it  is  in  good  keeping  with  the  white  set¬ 
tle  and  chairs,  and  the  dresser  with  noggins,  wooden  trenchers. 
and  pewter  dishes,  perfectly  clean,  and  as  well  polished  as  a 
French  courtier. 

As  you  leave  the  village,  you  have  to  the  left  a  view  of  the 
hill  which  I  have  already  described;  and  to  the  right,  a  level  ex¬ 
panse  of  fertile  country,  bounded  by  a  good  view  of  respectable 
mountains,  peering  directly  into  the  sky;  and  in  a  line  that  forms 
an  acute  angle  from  the  point  of  the  road  where  you  ride,  is  a 
delightful  valley,  in  the  bottom  of  which  shines  a  pretty  lake* 
and  a  little  beyond,  on  the  slope  of  a  green  hill,  rises  a  splendid 
house,  surrounded  by  a  park  well  wooded  and  stocked  with  deer, 
You  have  now  topped  the  little  hill  above  the  village,  and  a 
straight  line  of  level  road,  a  mile  long,  goes  forward  to  a  country 
town,  which  lies  immediately  behind  that  white  church,  with  its 
spire  cutting  into  the  sky  before  you.  You  descend  on  the  other 
side,  and,  having  advanced  a  few  perches,  look  to  the  left,  where 
you  see  a  long  thatched  chapel,  only  distinguished  from  a  dwelling- 
house  by  its  want  of  chimneys,  and  a  small  stone  cross  that 
stands  on  the  top  of  the  eastern  gable;  behind  it  is  a  graveyard, 
and  beside  it  a  snug  public  house,  well  whitewashed;  then,  to 
the  right  you  observe  a  door,  apparently  in  the  side  of  a  clay 
bank,  which  rises  considerably  above  the  pavement  of  the  road. 
What!  you  ask  yourself,  can  this  be  a  human  habitation’  But 
ere  you  have  time  to  answer  the  question,  a  confused  buzz  of 
voices  from  within  reaches  your  ear,  and  the  appearance  of  a 
little  gossoon,  with  a  red  close-cropped  head  and  Milesian  face, 
having  in  his  hand  a  short  white  stick,  or  the  thigh  bone  of  a 
horse,  which  you  at  once  recognize  as  <(  the  pass w  of  a  village 
school,  gives  you  the  full  information.  He  has  an  inkhorn,  cov¬ 
ered  with  leather,  dangling  at  the  buttonhole  (for  he  has  long 
since  played  away  the  buttons)  of  his  frieze  jacket  —  his  mouth  is 
circumscribed  with  a  streak  of  ink — his  pen  is  stuck  knowingly 


WILLIAM  CARLETON 


825 

behind  his  ear  —  his  shins  are  dotted  over  with  fire  blisters,  black, 
red,  and  blue  —  on  each  heel  a  kibe  —  his  <(  leather  crackers,® 
videlicet ,  breeches,  shrunk  up  upon  him,  and  only  reaching  as  far 
down  as  the  caps  of  his  knees.  Having  spied  you,  he  places  his 
hand  over  his  brows  to  throw  back  the  dazzling  light  of  the  sun, 
and  peers  at  you  from  under  it,  till  he  breaks  out  into  a  laugh, 
exclaiming,  half  to  himself,  half  to  you  — 

<(You  a  gintleman!  —  no,  nor  one  of  your  breed  never  was, 
you  procthorin’  thief,  you!® 

You  are  now  immediately  opposite  the  door  of  the  seminary, 
when  half  a  dozen  of  those  seated  next  it  notice  you. 

<(  Oh,  sir,  here’s  a  gintleman  on  a  horse!  —  masther,  sir,  here’s 
a  gintleman  on  a  horse,  wid  boots  and  spurs  on  him,  that’s  look¬ 
ing  in  at  us.® 

<(  Silence!®  exclaims  the  master;  (<  back  from  the  door  —  boys, 
rehearse  —  every  one  of  you  rehearse,  I  say,  you  Boeotians,  till  the 
gintleman  goes  past !  ® 

<(  I  want  to  go  out,  if  you  plase,  sir.  ® 

(<  No,  you  don’t,  Phelim.® 

(<  I  do,  indeed,  sir.  ® 

«  What !  is  it  afther  contradictin’  me  you’d  be  ?  Don’t  you  see 
the  c porter’s  >  out,  and  you  can’t  go.® 

(<  Well,  ’tis  Mat  Meehan  has  it,  sir;  and  he’s  out  this  half  hour, 
sir;  I  can’t  stay  in,  sir.® 

«  You  want  to  be  idling  your  time  looking  at  the  gintleman, 
Phelim.  ® 

<(  No,  indeed,  sir.® 

<(  Phelim,  I  knows  you  of  ould  —  go  to  your  sate.  I  tell  you, 
Phelim,  you  were  born  for  the  encouragement  of  the  hemp  man¬ 
ufacture,  and  you’ll  die  promoting  it.® 

In  the  meantime  the  master  puts  his  head  out  of  the  door, 
his  body  stooped  to  a  <(half  bend®  —  a  phrase,  and  the  exact 
curve  which  it  forms,  I  leave  for  the  present  to  your  own  sagac¬ 
ity —  and  surveys  you  until  you  pass.  That  is  an  Irish  hedge 
school,  and  the  personage  who  follows  you  with  his  eye  a  hedge 
schoolmaster. 


From  (<  Traits  and  Stories  of  the  Irish  Peasantry. » 


I 


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